By Andrew Warshaw
November 18 – Sepp Blatter and Michel Platini, both of whom insist they are innocent, have lost their respective appeals against being banned for 90 days for financial wrongdoing.
The appeals were rejected today by FIFA’s appeals committee, a crushing blow to the 79-year-old FIFA president and his would-be successor, the head of UEFA, who both vowed to clear the names from the moment the suspensions were imposed last month by FIFA’s ethics committee.
The sanctions were handed down pending a full investigation into the already infamous SFr2 million payment to Platini in 2011 for consultancy work carried out nine years earlier when he was employed by Blatter as an adviser. Switzerland’s attorney general has opened criminal proceedings against Blatter, who is also being investigated in relation to a TV rights deal he signed with disgraced former CONCACAF supremo Jack Warner in 2005.
Today’s judgements were expected as the appeals panel rarely overturns verdicts by other FIFA judicial bodies. Blatter and Platini’s last recourse will be to go to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) which they seem likely to take up. Meanwhile they are expected to appear before FIFA’s German ethics judge Joachim Eckert in December.
In a statement, FIFA said its appeals committee, chaired by Larry Mussenden of Bermuda, “rejected in full the appeals lodged by Joseph S. Blatter and Michel Platini and confirmed in their entirety the respective decisions (cf. art. 84 par. 2 of the FIFA Code of Ethics) concerning provisional measures taken by the adjudicatory chamber of the independent Ethics Committee.”
Although Blatter and Platini could technically still clear their names at CAS today’s ruling is a hammer blow for both of them. Blatter, recently treated in hospital for stress, is keen to end his controversial 18-year career by personally handing over to his successor on February 26. For Platini, the decision is a grave setback in his ambitions to take over from his mentor-turned-foe.
Yesterday, Insideworldootball exclusively reported that both Blatter and Platini face being banned for several years before Christmas whether or not they successfully appealed against their temporary suspensions.
It is understood FIFA investigators are close to completing their inquiries and recommending stringent sanctions over the SFr2 million “disloyal payment” and that they are keen to wrap up the case as quickly as possible.
It is further understood that the files on Blatter and Platini will be handed over by the end of November to Eckert, giving him another month to hear from all parties before delivering his final sentence – likely to be a ban of several years .
Last month, Domenico Scala, the increasingly influential official who has the ultimate say in who can and can’t run for FIFA president, told the Financial Times that the non-declaration of the notorious payment was a “serious omission”.
“The key points are a conflict of interest and the non-accrual of the 2 million in FIFA’s accounts,” said Scala. “Both parties admit an agreement over the 2 million, but that amount was never recorded in FIFA’s account until the payment occurred.”
Platini’s candidacy is currently on hold and has not yet gone through the required integrity checks pending whether he ends up being cleared. But it looks increasingly likely his presidential ambitions will end in failure, plunging the Frenchman, regarded before his suspension as odds-on favourite to take over from Blatter, into the political wilderness and leaving a massive void at the helm of European football’s governing body.
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