FIFA has dismissed appeals from Sepp Blatter and Michel Platini against their bans from all football activity but
they were able to get their bans reduced from eight years to six years by the
FIFA appeal committee. The news comes after Platini and Blatter's hearings
were held in Zurich earlier this month.
Platini and Blatter were banned in December over a disloyal payment of £1.3m between them in 2011, made without a
written FIFA contract, when both claimed they had a verbal agreement for FIFA
to pay Platini an additional salary for his work as Blatter's presidential
adviser from 1999-2002. FIFA fined Platini 80,000 Swiss Francs (£58,300) and
Blatter 50,000 Swiss Francs (£36,400). Blatter intends to take his case to the
Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) and Platini is expected to follow suit.
Blatter was nervous and expecting bad
news ahead of the outcome of the FIFA hearings but, while their appeals
were rejected, the committee decided that their work in football should deserve appropriate recognition,
and denied an attempt by FIFA ethics prosecutors to have the pair banned
for life. The 79years old said in a statement through his spokesman: “I am very disappointed by the appeal
committee of FIFA and I will take it to the Court of Arbitration for Sport in
Lausanne”.
A statement from FIFA said: “The FIFA
Appeal Committee, chaired by Larry Mussenden (Bermuda), has partially confirmed
the decisions taken by the adjudicatory chamber of the independent Ethics
Committee on 17 and 18 December, 2015, regarding Joseph S. Blatter and Michel
Platini respectively, whose bans have been reduced from eight to six years. Mr
Platini's and Mr Blatter's appeals are dismissed in respect of infringements of
art. 13 (General rules of conduct), art. 15 (Loyalty), art. 19 (Conflict of interests)
and art. 20 (Offering and accepting gifts and other benefits) of the FIFA Code
of Ethics, as established by the adjudicatory chamber. The Appeal Committee
concurred with the findings of the adjudicatory chamber of the Ethics Committee
in the sense that the evidence available in the present case is not sufficient
to establish a breach of article 21 of the FIFA Code of Ethics (Bribery and
corruption). Consequently, the appeal lodged by the investigatory chamber for a
life ban from all football-related activity was also dismissed. While agreeing
with the principles and arguments presented by the adjudicatory chamber in its
calculation of the sanction, the Appeal Committee determined that some strong
mitigating factors for Mr Platini and Mr Blatter were not taken into account
when establishing the sanction. In this sense, amongst others, the Appeal
Committee considered that Mr Platini's and Mr Blatter's activities and the
services they had rendered to FIFA, UEFA and football in general over the years
should deserve appropriate recognition as a mitigating factor. Thus, after
carefully analysing and taking into consideration the exceptional mitigating
circumstances of the cases, it was determined that a one-year reduction of the
five-year ban for a breach of art. 20 of the FCE was proper, and similarly a
one-year reduction of the three-year ban for the other breaches was also proper”.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Contact Us
Email: publisher@absolutehearts.com
Phone/whatsapp: +2348027922363