Platini, Blatter handed eight-year ban by FIFA

Chennai

The sentence against the two most powerful men in football stunningly highlighted the troubles faced by the world’s most popular sport where billions of dollars have been invested in recent years. Blatter, 79, and Platini, 60, were “immediately” banned from all football activity. Blatter’s career is now almost certainly over while Platini’s hopes of taking over FIFA are all but finished.

Conflict of interest

Blatter, FIFA’s president since 1998, was fined 50,000 Swiss francs ($50,000/46,300 euros). Platini, the head of UEFA, Europe’s governing body and a FIFA vice president, was fined 80,000 Swiss francs.  A statement by the court said both showed “abusive execution” of their powers. FIFA had looked into a two million Swiss francs payment authorised by Blatter to Platini in 2011. They said it was for work as a consultant carried out between 1999 and 2002. While the FIFA court dropped corruption charges against both men, it said both were guilty of a conflict of interest. It said there was “no legal basis” for the payment in an oral agreement between the two. 

‘No wrongdoing’ 

Blatter and Platini were provisionally suspended in October after Swiss prosecutors started a criminal investigation into the 2011 cash transfer.  Blatter is under criminal investigation and Platini is being treated as between a suspect and a witness. Both strongly deny any wrongdoing.  At the time of the 2011 payment, Blatter was campaigning for a fourth term as FIFA president. Platini later supported his former mentor but has since turned against him. Blatter and Platini can challenge any ban at a FIFA appeal tribunal, the Court of Arbitration for Sport, and even in a Swiss civil court.