FIFA bans Blatter, Platini for eight years

This file photo taken on May 29 shows FIFA President Sepp Blatter (L) listening to UEFA President Michel Platini during the 65th FIFA Congress in Zurich. AFP Photo

An ethics tribunal of scandal-plagued FIFA on Dec. 21 banned Sepp Blatter and Michel Platini for eight years saying they had abused their positions over a 2 million Swiss francs payment made to Platini.

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.

Blatter will appeal against a FIFA ruling banning him from football for eight years to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS), his spokesman said on Dec. 21.        

"I can confirm this, yes," Blatter spokesman Klaus Stoelker told AFP when asked if the long-serving FIFA president would launch an appeal at the Lausanne-based court.

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 authorized 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 officials in August 1999.

"Neither in his written statement nor in his personal hearing was Mr. Blatter able to...

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