By Andrew Warshaw
December 23 – Banned UEFA president Michel Platini has accused FIFA’s ethics committee of being “asleep”, between 2011 and 2015 following its decision to ban him for eight years.
In an interview with AFP, the 60-year-old Frenchman repeated his somewhat spurious claim that the timing of the ban was a deliberate attempt to prevent him from standing in February’s FIFA presidential election on February 26.
“What was the FIFA ethics committee doing between 2011, when I was paid, and 2015? Was it sleeping? Suddenly it wakes up,” Platini declared. “Ah yes, it wakes up in a FIFA election year when I’m a candidate. It’s amazing.”
His claims do not entirely stack up given that it was the Swiss Attorney General which opened the probe into the SFr2 million “disloyal payment” made to Platini some nine years after work he carried out on behalf of Sepp Blatter when he was a special adviser to the veteran Swiss who has also been banned for eight years.
The Ethics Committee only became aware of the case once the attorney general’s office uncovered wrongdoing and would doubtless argue it could not have acted on information it didn’t know about beforehand.
Not only that. Current ethics investigative chief Cornel Borbély has only been in charge for a year and can hardly be accused of foot-dragging.
Nevertheless, Platini insisted he should not have been tarnished with the same brush as Blatter, who has been at the helm of his scandal-tarnished organisation for the best part of 18 years.
“I’m fighting against this injustice, from one court to another,” said Platini, referring to the various avenues of appeal including the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) and even the Swiss civil court.
“In the meantime, my name has been dragged through the mud in the press. Whatever happens, my reputation has been sullied, I’ve been kicked in the teeth – I’ve been put in the same bag as Blatter.”
Platini managed to submit his presidential candidacy just before being provisionally suspended along with Blatter. But he cannot stand while banned and has been replaced as a contender by his UEFA number two, Gianni infantino. He now acknowledges he may run out of time to clear his name since any appeals process would probably have to be completed by mid-January.
“What is troubling is that I have no certainty about the timetable ahead,” Platini said. “As long as I have not had the reasons for the suspension I cannot appeal before the CAS.”
He insisted there was nothing illegal in the oral “gentleman’s agreement” made with Blatter even though it was not lodged in FIFA accounts at the time and only came to light in 2011.
“I’m struggling to understand. Why? How did we get to this? I did some work, I asked to be paid, I sent an invoice, I was paid, I paid my taxes on that. That was in 2011.”
“There was a debt that was settled, full stop. Then, in 2015, the Swiss court wanted more information. Then it took off at FIFA and a lot of people at FIFA are happy that this issue happened. And here I am, suspended from all football-related activity for eight years.”
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