EIGHT-YEAR BANS SIGNAL THE END FOR BLATTER AND PLATINI
SAD old Sepp Blatter still doesn’t think it’s all over. But it is now for both him and Michel Platini. The two most powerful men in world football are leaving the game in total disgrace in a seismic moment on the FIFA corruption trail.
There is no coming back from the eight-year bans from all football activity handed out to suspended FIFA and UEFA presidents Blatter and Platini yesterday by the FIFA ethics adjudicatory chamber.
They were kicked out of the sport for conflict of interest and disloyalty to FIFA, mainly over that undocumented £1.35million consultancy fee paid by Blatter to Platini in 2011 — nine years after the work was completed. They claim it was a gentlemen’s agreement.
Only bribery and corruption not being proved saved them from life bans but the murky payment — the smoking gun that has done most to bring down the house of FIFA — is also the subject of a criminal investigation in Switzerland.
The 79-year-old Blatter, more delusional by the day, insists he has done nothing wrong and will take his case to the FIFA appeals committee, then the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) and finally the Federal Supreme Court had no help from Europe in any election and the ethics committee has no right to go against the president.’
When asked about serial corruption on his watch, which has resulted in 11 arrests, he said: ‘I cannot be personally or morally responsible for the people I don’t select or re-elect. How can I know what people are doing?’
Platini, who has already lost a FIFA appeal and at CAS over his 90-day suspension, also intends to carry on with the lost cause. He said: ‘The decision is no surprise to me, the procedure initiated against me is a pure masquerade. It has been rigged to tarnish my name by bodies I know well and who for me are bereft of all credibility or legitimacy. I will fight this to the end.’
And Platini was backed by UEFA who said in a statement: ‘UEFA is extremely disappointed with this decision, which nevertheless is subject to appeal. Once again UEFA supports Michel Platini’s right to a due process and the opportunity to clear his name.’
But the pair have to face reality. Their time in football has finished with their reputations wholly discredited. Blatter has to now accept that his 17 years as president and 40 years with FIFA have come to an end. And Platini’s ambition of standing for the FIFA presidency in February is not going to happen.
Blatter should now concentrate on his own health, having claimed he nearly died in hospital from the stress of being suspended for 90 days — ‘They tried to kill me, it was a near thing’. The big concern is that for someone who lives only for FIFA, an eight-year ban might be too much for him to bear.
Platini’s ineligibility leaves five candidates in the running to succeed Blatter; Bahrain’s Sheik Salman, Prince Ali of Jordan, UEFA secretary general Gianni Infantino, South African businessman Tokyo Sexwale and former FIFA executive Jerome Champagne.
FIFA ethics judge Hans-Joachim Eckert ruled that Blatter and Platini broke regulations on conflict of interests, breach of loyalty and offering or receiving gifts. As well as the bans, Blatter was fined 50,000 Swiss francs (€46,000) and Platini 80,000 (€73,800).
The ethics judgement read: ‘Neither in his written statements nor in his personal hearing was Mr Blatter able to demonstrate the legal basis for this payment. By failing to place FIFA’s interests first and abstain from doing anything which could be contrary to FIFA’s interests, Mr Blatter violated his fiduciary duty to FIFA.’ Of Platini, the judges said he ‘failed to act with complete credibility and integrity’.
I am not ashamed — Page 18