Sepp Blatter: Former FIFA president loses appeal against six-year ban
Posted
Former FIFA president Sepp Blatter has lost his appeal against a six-year ban for ethics violations, imposed amid the biggest corruption scandal to shake the world soccer body, the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) says.
CAS ruled that Blatter had authorised payments to former European football boss Michel Platini worth more than $US2 million ($2.7 million) that amounted to "undue gifts" and therefore violated FIFA's code of ethics.
Blatter led FIFA for 17 years, resigning in June last year after several dozen football officials, including FIFA executive committee members and former members, had been indicted in the United States on corruption charges, along with two sports marketing firms.
The 80-year-old Swiss was not among those indicted, but became embroiled in scandal when he was banned from all football-related activity the following December by FIFA's Ethics Committee along with Platini, then president of the European soccer body UEFA.
The men were banned, initially for eight years, over a payment of 2 million Swiss francs ($2.7 million) that FIFA made to Platini in 2011, with Blatter's approval, for work done a decade earlier.
The bans were reduced to six years by FIFA's appeals committee in February.
Both men denied wrongdoing and Blatter said the payment related to a verbal agreement between them.
CAS said in a statement that its three-man panel had determined that Blatter "breached the FIFA code of ethics since the payment amounted to an undue gift as it had no contractual basis".
"The Panel further found that Mr Blatter unlawfully awarded contributions to Mr Platini under the FIFA Executive Committee retirement scheme which also amounted to an undue gifts," CAS said.
Blatter, who must also pay a fine of 50,000 Swiss francs ($66,300), said in a statement that he was not surprised by the CAS ruling.
"The way the case progressed, no other verdict could be expected," he said.
"What I find incomprehensible is that the existence of the oral agreement between FIFA and Michel Platini is still steadfastly negated, in spite of my testimony to the contrary.
"I have to accept this decision, although it is difficult to follow it."
Reuters
Topics: courts-and-trials, law-crime-and-justice, soccer, sport, switzerland
