By Andrew Warshaw
December 10 – The Court of Arbitration for Sport will announce its verdict into Michel Platini’s appeal against his provisional suspension at 10am tomorrow local time, giving the UEFA president just enough time to speed his way to chair the last session this year of his executive committee – provided he is cleared.
Such is the state of confusion and uncertainty surrounding UEFA as well as FIFA that none of European football’s top brass will know until around their meeting is due to get under way in Paris whether Platini will be able to re-emerge and join them.
The Frenchman is accused of accepting a ‘disloyal payment’ of SFr2 million from FIFA, authorised by Sepp Blatter, in February 2011. The payment came to light at the time Swiss authorities placed Blatter under criminal investigation and was for work undertaken between 1999 and 2002
Both have been provisionally suspended for 90 days and CAS has confirmed that a decision on the “temporary lifting” of Platini’s sanction will be announced around 10am.
Although the main item on the UEFA exco agenda is the Euro 2016 draw the following day, discussions are also due to be held on a possible electoral congress in case Platini is further banned and has to be replaced for the last three years of his current mandate.
Meanwhile, a Swiss financial publication is claiming that FIFA’s own internal investigation into corruption allegations against Blatter have failed to come up with any firm evidence.
Sanctions have been requested by ethics investigators but Handelszeitung quoted a source close to the inquiry as saying: “Tangible and legally admissible evidence for the allegation of corruption can be found nowhere in the entire investigative report.”
It is understood the source may have come from within Blatter’s legal team and that ethics prosecutors take an entirely different view. All will be revealed when FIFA’s ethics judge Hans-Joachim Eckert announces his judgement in Christmas week.
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