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Sepp Blatter and Michel Platini banned from football for eight years by Fifa Sepp Blatter and Michel Platini banned from football for eight years by Fifa
(about 7 hours later)
Sepp Blatter and the longtime Fifa president’s one-time heir apparent, Michel Platini, have been banned from football for eight years, ending the career of the former and definitively derailing the vaulting ambitions of the latter. The downfall of Sepp Blatter and the disgraced Fifa president’s one-time heir apparent, Michel Platini, is all but complete after both were banned from football for eight years by the world governing body’s own ethics committee.
Related: Sepp Blatter and Michel Platini banned from football by Fifa – live updates! Both men were cleared of corruption charges but found guilty of a series of other breaches including a conflict of interest and dereliction of duty over a 2m Swiss francs (£1.35m) “disloyal payment” from Blatter to Platini, the Uefa president, in 2011.
The Fifa ethics committee, chaired by the German judge Hans-Joachim Eckert, has ruled that both men should be banned despite their protestations that they did nothing wrong when Blatter paid the Uefa president 2m Swiss francs (£1.35m) in 2011, nine years after both men claimed it was originally due. While they will fight to clear their name at Fifa’s own appeals committee and the court of arbitration for sport, the verdict looks likely to finally bring the curtain down on Blatter’s controversial 40-year tenure at Fifa and Platini’s hopes of replacing him in the top job.
The committee found that: “Mr Blatter, in his position as president of Fifa, authorised the payment to Mr Platini which had no legal basis in the written agreement signed between both officials on 25 August 1999. Neither in his written statement nor in his personal hearing was Mr Blatter able to demonstrate another legal basis for this payment. His assertion of an oral agreement was determined as not convincing and was rejected by the chamber.” A defiant but visibly weakened Blatter, so used to being the centre of attention, immediately held a press conference in Zurich in which he referenced Nelson Mandela and the Nobel peace prize. “I am not ashamed,” said the 79-year-old Swiss. “I am sorry that I am a punching ball. I am sorry for football … I am now suspended eight years. Suspended eight years for what?”
In addition to being banned, Blatter was fined 50,000 Swiss francs or £34,000 and Platini 80,000 Swiss francs or £54,000. Platini, who worked at Fifa from 1998 to 2002 and has been Uefa president since 2007, said the decision was a “pure masquerade”. “It has been rigged to tarnish my name by bodies I know well and who for me are bereft of all credibility or legitimacy.” Uefa said it was “extremely disappointed” with the decision.
Blatter’s personal adviser Klaus Stoehlker said that the 79-year-old would appeal against the ban and was prepared to take the case to the court of arbitration for sport in Lausanne. Platini also said he would appeal, claiming in a statement that he was “at peace with my conscience”. It was hard to escape the impression that Blatter had been undone by the very tools he had often used to control and expel his enemies during his 40 years at Fifa, 17 of them as president. Like Platini last week, he intimated the ethics committee had an ulterior motive in banning him on grounds that he said were unfair.
Fifa was thrown into crisis in May when Swiss police raided the five-star Baur au Lac hotel and nine senior football officials were indicted in the US on charges including money laundering and racketeering. Last month, a further indictment followed against a further 16 individuals. Fifa was thrown into crisis in May when Swiss police raided the five-star Baur au Lac hotel and nine senior football officials were indicted in the US on charges including money laundering and racketeering. Last month, a further 16 individuals were charged after more early morning raids.
Related: Sepp Blatter: how the Machiavellian master of Fifa power politics fellRelated: Sepp Blatter: how the Machiavellian master of Fifa power politics fell
Under huge pressure, Blatter agreed to stand down in June a few days after being re-elected for a fifth term as president. Platini quickly emerged as the favourite to succeed him, much to the public chagrin of his one-time mentor. Under huge pressure, Blatter agreed to stand down a few days after being re-elected for a fifth term as president in May. Platini quickly emerged as the favourite to succeed him, much to the public chagrin of his erstwhile mentor.
Blatter appeared personally before the ethics committee on Thursday, protesting his innocence in a letter to all 209 Fifa members in which he likened the process to the Spanish inquisition. Platini refused to appear in person, with his lawyers conducting the nine-hour hearing before Eckert and three other judges. But the Frenchman railed against the ethics committee’s provisional 90-day suspension and complained of ulterior political motives to force him out of the race to succeed Blatter. Blatter appeared personally before the ethics committee last Thursday, protesting his innocence in a letter to all 209 Fifa members in which he likened the process to the Spanish inquisition. Platini refused to appear in person, with his lawyers taking part in the nine-hour hearing on his behalf.
Neither man has been able to provide a written contract for the payment, however, or definitively explain away why it was eventually paid in 2011, a few weeks before the presidential election at a time when Blatter was facing a challenge from Mohamed bin Hammam, the Qatari who himself was ultimately banned over bribery claims. Blatter and Platini said the payment related to a period between 1998 and 2002 when the Frenchman acted as a special adviser to the Swiss. Platini has claimed Blatter told him at the time that Fifa could not afford to pay him, despite the governing body making £78m over that four-year cycle, and did not want to break its wage structure. Related: Sepp Blatter and Michel Platini banned from football by Fifa – live updates!
Both Blatter and Platini have said they believed their verbal contract was legal under Swiss law. However, Swiss law places a five-year time limit on such payments. The fact that the payments did not feature in Fifa’s accounts was believed to form part of the case against them. But neither man has been able to provide a written contract for the £1.35m payment or definitively explain away why it was eventually paid in 2011, a few weeks before a presidential election at a time when Blatter was facing a challenge from Mohamed bin Hammam, the Qatari who himself was ultimately banned from football over bribery claims.
The ethics committee found that: “The payment to Mr Platini had no legal basis in the written agreement signed between both officials on 25 August 1999. Mr Platini’s assertion of an oral agreement was determined as not convincing and was rejected by the chamber.” Platini acted as a special adviser to Blatter from 1998 to 2002. The Frenchman has claimed Blatter told him at the time that Fifa could not afford to pay him, despite the governing body making £78m over that four-year cycle, and did not want to break its wage structure. Blatter and Platini have said they believed their verbal contract was legal under Swiss law. However, Swiss law places a five-year time limit on such payments.
In addition to alleged corruption, which carried a potential lifetime ban, the charges were based on four other potential breaches: mismanagement, conflict of interest, false accounting and noncooperation with the ethics committee.
The judges said: “Neither in his written statement nor in his personal hearing was Mr Blatter able to demonstrate another legal basis for this payment. 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. His assertion of an oral agreement was determined as not convincing and was rejected by the chamber.”
Related: Michel Platini: fall of a smooth operator who thought he played by different rulesRelated: Michel Platini: fall of a smooth operator who thought he played by different rules
Switzerland’s attorney general is investigating whether the 2m Swiss francs constitutes what is termed a “disloyal payment”. Platini, the ethics committee judges said, also placed himself in a position of a conflict of interest and violated his fiduciary duty to Fifa. “Mr Platini failed to act with complete credibility and integrity, showing unawareness of the importance of his duties and concomitant obligations and responsibilities.”
Blatter has been interviewed as part of a criminal investigation against him and Platini spoken to as “someone between a witness and an accused person” under Swiss law. Blatter acknowledged an administrative error in failing to register Fifa’s debt to Platini in its accounts for eight years, though he insisted: “This is nothing to do with the ethics regulations.”
Uefa said it “has taken note of the decision of the Fifa ethics committee to suspend Michel Platini for eight years from all football-related activities. Blatter, accompanied by his daughter, Corinne, tried to summon his usual defiance in insisting he was still the Fifa president and declaring: “I’ll be back,” as he took his leave.
“Naturally, Uefa is extremely disappointed with this decision, which nevertheless is subject to appeal. Once again, Uefa supports Michel Platini’s right to a due process and the opportunity to clear his name.” “I have never cheated with money,” he insisted. “I am still the president. Even if I am suspended, I am still the president.”
The 79-year-old Blatter, who over 18 years as Fifa president and 22 before that as a senior executive had become synonymous with its culture of patronage and perks as football’s commercial income boomed, has cut a disconsolate figure in recent weeks since being provisionally suspended for 90 days. But he was a much-diminished and frailer figure than the one who stood on stage in a Zurich conference hall days after US prosecutors had indicted nine senior Fifa officials among 14 football executives charged with money laundering and corruption offences.
“This is not justice. I put these people into the office, where they are now in the ethics committee and they don’t even have the courage to listen to the secretary general, Platini or me,” he said in one of many interviews he has given over the period, during which he has variously railed at the US investigators, Uefa and the British media. Sporting a large plaster on his right cheek following minor surgery to remove a mole last week, he said that a health scare at the beginning of November would have killed him had it not been for his doctors.
Since being levered into position by the late Adidas executive Horst Dassler and João Havelange, his predecessor as president, Blatter survived a series of scandals and corruption storms. But, barring a successful appeal to the court of arbitration for sport, his long career in football is now over. Eight months after he won an election to consolidate his reign as Fifa president for another four years, Blatter still insisted he would return to oversee the Fifa congress in February that will decide his successor. But his chances of making his departure in the manner that he envisioned in front of Fifa’s 209 members – many of whom still support him – now hang by the slenderest of threads.
Platini’s fall from grace has been swifter still. In the wake of Blatter’s demise, the Uefa president was the most powerful man in football and swiftly emerged as the strong favourite to succeed him despite questions over his support for Qatar’s successful 2022 World Cup bid and his formerly close links to Blatter. Platini’s demise was, if anything, even more swift. Having pledged reform to heal Fifa’s tattered reputation and demanded that Blatter stand down, the French Uefa president quickly emerged as a strong candidate to succeed him.
But the former world footballer of the year, who expected to attend this summer’s European Championship in France as Fifa president, now faces being cast from the sport that made him at the age of 60. Despite questions over his earlier links to Blatter and the manner in which he backed Qatar’s 2022 World Cup bid, he was a clear favourite until Switzerland’s attorney general launched an investigation into what Swiss law terms a “disloyal payment” and the Fifa ethics committee followed suit.
Damian Collins, the Tory MP who plays a key role in the New Fifa Now campaign group, said: “The fish rots from the head down and we know how rotten the head of Fifa was.”
But within the dysfunctional football family that will supply Blatter’s successor unless campaigners succeed in forcing external reform, there was sympathy for his plight. The former Asian Football Confederation general secretary Peter Velappan said: “This is very harsh, especially for Blatter because he dedicated his life to football and Fifa. Eight years is like a death sentence.”
Sheikh Salman, the Bahraini president of the AFC, is favourite to succeed Blatter. He said in an interview last week that the series of US arrests that precipitated the current crisis were “nothing to do with Fifa”.