Former Fifa president Sepp Blatter’s six-year ban from football has been upheld after an appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (Cas).
The 80-year-old Swiss was banned over ethics breaches as his 17 years as head of football’s world governing body ended in a corruption scandal in 2015.
He was found to have made a £1.3m “disloyal payment” to ex-Uefa boss Michel Platini. Both deny wrongdoing.
Cas described the payment as “an undue gift” with “no contractual basis”.
Blatter said “no other verdict could be expected”.
He added: “I have to accept this decision. I have experienced much in my 41 years in Fifa. I mostly learned that you can win in sport, but you can also lose.”
In its written verdict, Cas said Blatter “requested the annulment of the ban but did not request a reduced penalty”.
It added: “In any event, the panel determined that the sanction imposed was not disproportionate.”
Fifa suspended Blatter and former France international Platini for eight years in December, but the bans were reduced to six years by its appeals committee.
In May, Cas reduced Platini’s ban to four years after he appealed.
The 61-year-old had sought to get the punishment overturned, but a three-man panel said it “was not convinced by the legitimacy” of the payment Blatter made to him in 2011.
Both men say it was for consultancy work Platini had done for Blatter between 1998 and 2002, and they had a “gentleman’s agreement” on when the balance would be settled.
The payment is also being looked into by Swiss prosecutors.
Fifa has told its banned leader Sepp Blatter he will have to leave his presidential apartment by February 26 when a successor is elected, a source close to the world body said on Tuesday.
The apartment in an old Zurich house that has been divided is one of the perks Blatter, 79, will lose after his eight year suspension pronounced on Monday by Fifa’s ethics court.
He automatically loses his Fifa mobile phone and his professional email address, said the source, speaking on condition of anonymity.
But the disgraced Fifa leader, found guilty of a conflict of interest over a two million Swiss franc ($2 million/1.8 million euro) payment to Fifa vice president Michel Platini does not lose all privileges, the source said.
“He is still protected by his labour contract” under Swiss law, said the source.
So Blatter will get his salary – for which he has refused to reveal the amount – his Fifa car and apartment until the contract ends on February 26.
A Fifa congress is to be held on that day to elect a new president and agree reforms to the scandal-tainted body.
FIFA president Sepp Blatter and UEFA boss Michel Platini have been suspended for eight years from all football-related activities following an ethics investigation.
The bans come into force immediately.
At 79, Blatter’s suspension effectively ends his long career as a football administrator.
FIFA boss since 1998, the Swiss had already announced his intention to stand down before February’s presidential election.
Platini, 60, was tipped as a future leader of football’s world governing body and had hoped to succeed Blatter.
A three-time European Footballer of the Year and former captain of France, he had been in charge of Uefa – European football’s governing body – since 2007.
Blatter and Platini were found guilty of ethics code breaches surrounding a £1.3m ($1.94m) “disloyal payment” made to the Frenchman in 2011.
Both men denied any wrongdoing and claimed the payment was honouring an agreement made in 1998 for work carried out between 1998 and 2002 when Platini worked as a technical adviser for Blatter.
The payment was not part of Platini’s written contract but the pair insisted it was a verbal agreement, which is legal under Swiss law.
German judge Hans-Joachim Eckert, the chairman of FIFA’s adjudicatory chamber, held disciplinary hearings for the pair last week.
Charges included conflict of interest, false accounting and non co-operation, with investigators submitting a file of more than 50 pages.
That has thrown into doubt his eligibility to stand in February’s election to replace current FIFA president Sepp Blatter, who has also been suspended by the governing body’s ethics committee.
However, Platini insisted he would not be thrown off course.
“I am, in all humility, the most able to run world football,” he said in an interview with the Daily Telegraph.
Asked if he felt the suspension was part of a bid to scupper his candidacy, Platini said: “As far as I’m concerned, there is manifestly a disproportion between the facts that I am accused of and the extent of the provisional suspension I have been hit with.
“This suspension prevents me from campaigning and fighting on an equal footing. It clouds what is really at stake in this election for the future of world football.
“Even if I cannot go out campaigning, I fully consider myself a candidate. Today, I have the sense of being a knight from the Middle Ages, in front of a castle. I am trying to get in to bring football back, but instead I’m having boiling oil poured on my head.”
Platini was suspended earlier this month when it emerged that he had been paid £1.3m by FIFA in 2011 for work completed nine years earlier.
However, Platini insisted everything about the payment — which was made three months before a FIFA presidential election in which Platini opted not to challenge Blatter — was above board and properly handled.
“The two million [Swiss francs] represents the equivalent of four years’ salary arrears that FIFA owed me when I was the president’s special adviser. The president himself offered me a contract and a salary that I accepted,” he said.
“So to be clear: Was there work provided? Yes. Is an oral contract legal in Switzerland? Yes. Did I have the right to reclaim my money even nine years later? Yes. Did I produce a proper invoice as FIFA required? Yes. Was the money declared to the taxman? Yes.”
Asked directly about claims that the payment was effectively a bribe to keep him from standing in 2011, Platini said: “These other allegations are not based on anything.”
Seven candidates have been confirmed and will stand in FIFA’s presidential election which also includes Michel Platini.
He also played down the idea that Blatter’s decision to pay him so soon before the election was effectively a trap.
“I don’t want to believe in conspiracy theories,” he said. “Yes, I have waited a long time to reclaim what I was owed. But the only mistake is that I let several years go by.
“I had faith in the word of the FIFA president and I knew he would pay me one day. I was lucky enough not to need the money, but just because I don’t need the money doesn’t mean I shouldn’t be paid for my work.”
Blatter had also given his account of events in the interview he conducted with the TASS news agency this week.
Asked about the contract with Platini, Blatter had said: “When he was chairman of the organising committee for the France World Cup, he told me at the end of the cup, ‘I would like to work for you.’ And I said this is great because we all already worked with him. It was in 1998.
“And then he said that ‘I am very expensive.’ I said OK. So he said, ‘I am worth one million a year.’ I said, ‘I cannot pay this, it’s impossible.’ And he said, ‘OK, then pay me later.’ So we have made some contract, where he got some money, but not one million.
“He was working until he was elected in 2002 to FIFA Executive Committee and UEFA Executive Committee. He stopped his working contract because he was then an official of FIFA. He never touched this item until 2010.
“In 2010 he approached the financial director of FIFA by saying, ‘Hey, listen, FIFA owes us money.’ I was informed about that and I said, ‘OK, let him make an invoice of this, what we owe him.’ And then he said we owe him two million Swiss francs. And then I analysed that and I said OK.
“Yes, it’s a contract we have made. And it’s a principle I have in my life that if you owe money to somebody, then you pay it. Then we paid it. That’s all. And this money was not paid for any other reasons.”
Eight contenders are set to contest for the position of FIFA president by replacing Sepp Blatter, come February, 2016 as the FIFA presidency election takes place. However, our very own 63-year old Segun Odegbami couldn’t make it. Mr Segun has blamed the Nigeria Football Federation for his failure saying their help rather came too late to make him qualify.
Those that made it are; Michel Platini, Prince Ali bin al-Hussein, David Nakhid, Gianni Infantino, Tokyo Sexwale, Jerome Champagne, Sheikh Salman bin Ebrahim Al Khalifa and Musa Bility.
So one of these people will be FIFA’s next president come 2016.
I have been reflecting deeply about my presidency and about the forty years in which my life has been inextricably bound to FIFA and the great sport of football. I cherish FIFA more than anything and I want to do only what is best for FIFA and for football. I felt compelled to stand for re-election, as I believed that this was the best thing for the organisation. That election is over but FIFA’s challenges are not. FIFA needs a profound overhaul. While I have a mandate from the membership of FIFA, I do not feel that I have a mandate from the entire world of football – the fans, the players, the clubs, the people who live, breathe and love football as much as we all do at FIFA. Therefore, I have decided to lay down my mandate at an extraordinary elective Congress. I will continue to exercise my functions as FIFA President until that election. The next ordinary FIFA Congress will take place on 13 May 2016 in Mexico City. This would create unnecessary delay and I will urge the Executive Committee to organise an Extraordinary Congress for the election of my successor at the earliest opportunity. This will need to be done in line with FIFA’s statutes and we must allow enough time for the best candidates to present themselves and to campaign. Since I shall not be a candidate, and am therefore now free from the constraints that elections inevitably impose, I shall be able to focus on driving far-reaching, fundamental reforms that transcend our previous efforts. For years, we have worked hard to put in place administrative reforms, but it is plain to me that while these must continue, they are not enough. The Executive Committee includes representatives of confederations over whom we have no control, but for whose actions FIFA is held responsible. We need deep-rooted structural change. The size of the Executive Committee must be reduced and its members should be elected through the FIFA Congress. The integrity checks for all Executive Committee members must be organised centrally through FIFA and not through the confederations. We need term limits not only for the president but for all members of the Executive Committee. I have fought for these changes before and, as everyone knows, my efforts have been blocked. This time, I will succeed. I cannot do this alone. I have asked Domenico Scala to oversee the introduction and implementation of these and other measures. Mr. Scala is the Independent Chairman of our Audit and Compliance Committee elected by the FIFA Congress. He is also the Chairman of the ad hoc Electoral Committee and, as such, he will oversee the election of my successor. Mr. Scala enjoys the confidence of a wide range of constituents within and outside of FIFA and has all the knowledge and experience necessary to help tackle these major reforms. It is my deep care for FIFA and its interests, which I hold very dear, that has led me to take this decision. I would like to thank those who have always supported me in a constructive and loyal manner as President of FIFA and who have done so much for the game that we all love. What matters to me more than anything is that when all of this is over, football is the winner.
