FIFA president Sepp Blatter and UEFA boss Michel Platini were both banned from football for eight years on Monday for ethics violations, leaving the global game leaderless as it struggles with a swirl of corruption cases.
Blatter was fined 50,000 Swiss francs and Platini, who boycotted the ethics committee hearing as unfair, 80,000.
The pair had been suspended in October while an investigation was carried out into a 2 million Swiss franc ($2.02 million) payment that football’s global governing body made to Platini in 2011, with Blatter’s approval.
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The decision means that Blatter’s 17 years at the helm of world football will end in disgrace, and spells the end of Platini’s hopes of replacing the 79-year-old in a presidential election in February.
Both men immediately denied any wrongdoing and said they would appeal to the Swiss-based Court of Arbitration for Sport.
The Swiss, who spent four decades at FIFA, came out swinging, holding a news conference to tell reporters that he was sorry only that the president of FIFA was being treated as a “punching ball”.
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“I will fight for me and I will fight for FIFA,” said Blatter, unshaven and with a sticking plaster on his cheek, but defiant.
He said FIFA’s Ethics Committee had no right to relieve him of his duties.
The committee operates independently of FIFA; its members are appointed by the FIFA Congress and cannot be members of any standing committees.
The three-times European footballer of the year, who captained France to victory in the 1984 European Championships and helped organise the 1998 World Cup in his homeland before working for Blatter, called the decision a “pure masquerade”.
“It’s been rigged to tarnish my name by bodies I know well and who for me are bereft of all credibility or legitimacy,” he said in a statement.
Platini said his conscience was clear and that he would ultimately seek damages in civil proceedings. “I will fight this to the end,” he said.
The ethics committee began after the Swiss attorney general’s office opened criminal proceedings against Blatter over the payment to Platini.
The office is also investigating FIFA’s award of the 2018 and 2022 World Cup finals to Russia and to Qatar, a small, wealthy desert country with no real football tradition.
The Ethics Committee said it had not found evidence that the payment, made at a time when Blatter was seeking re-election, constituted a bribe, which meant the men were spared potential lifetime bans.
However, it said the transaction had lacked transparency and presented a conflict of interest.
Blatter and Platini argued that the payment followed a verbal agreement they made in 1998, and concerned Platini’s work for Blatter between 1998 and 2002.
But the committee’s Adjudicatory Chamber, headed by German lawyer Hans-Joachim Eckert, found that it had been “without a legal basis” and a breach of regulations governing gifts and other benefits.
It said that, “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”.
The chamber concluded that Blatter’s actions ultimately demonstrated “an abusive execution of his position as President of FIFA”.
It also said Platini’s argument that there had been a verbal agreement had not been convincing and that he, too, had abused his position as a FIFA vice-president and Executive Committee member. “Mr. Platini failed to act with complete credibility and integrity,” it said.
UEFA said it was disappointed with the ruling and “supports Michel Platini’s right to a due process and the opportunity to clear his name” while FIFA tersely said it “acknowledges the decision”.
Until his suspension, Platini had been the front-runner to succeed Blatter at the top of world football.