Sepp Blatter and Michel Platini could be banned for life

Sepp Blatter and Michel Platini will have formal hearings later this month into allegations that they breached FIFA’s ethics code, it has been announced.

Platini and Blatter say the payment was covered by a verbal contract, and that the £1.3m payment was the balance of an agreed dea0 worth one million Swiss francs a year, delayed because Federation Internationale de Football Association could not afford to pay it at the time.

Blatter insisted to RTS that Platini, his former protege and the UEFA president, is “an honest man” who should be cleared of wrongdoing.

The media speculated that a ban would be for six years, which also would have vetoed Platini’s candidacy for the presidency of Federation Internationale de Football Association, but according to lawyers things have gone much farther.

“For reasons linked to privacy rights and the presumption of innocence until proven guilty, the adjudicatory chamber will not publish details of the sanctions requested by the investigatory chamber in its final reports”.

Platini has insisted that the payment was above board, but his explanation has not deterred the organization’s ethics committee, which recently upheld a 90-day suspension doled out to him earlier this year while it conducts an internal investigation.

“President Blatter looks forward to having this matter decided impartially and based on the facts, and he is confident he will be vindicated when the facts are independently examined”, said a joint statement from Blatter’s Swiss lawyer Lorenz Erni and United States laywer Richard Cullen.

Interim Federation Internationale de Football Association president Issa Hayatou is also scheduled to report on a December 2 finance committee meeting.

FIFA’s executive committee will discuss ongoing reforms of the scandal-scarred soccer body at a meeting in Zurich next week.

“This ban is subject to corruption being proved but it is clearly a disproportionate punishment”.

The adjudicatory committee, led by German judge Hans Joachim Eckert, opened proceedings on Monday, after receiving the ethics committee’s recommendations.