FIFA’s ethics committee seek life bans for Blatter and Platini

FIFA’s Ethics Committee wants Michel Platini banned for life, the UEFA president’s lawyer has reportedly claimed.

Platini’s lawyer has confirmed that is the recommendation of FIFA’s ethics investigators and it is believed a similar sanction has been recommended for Blatter.

It’s unclear whether Blatter is also facing a lifetime ban, though at this point it probably shouldn’t be ruled out.

The payment made to Platini in 2011 was reportedly for work the Frenchman carried out a decade earlier.

Reports in Switzerland newspapers said the 79-year-old, now suspended from his post as Federation Internationale de Football Association president, fainted while visiting his parents’ grave with family members.

Platini is now serving a 90-day ban over cash he got as backdated salary nearly nine years after he stopped working as Blatter’s presidential adviser from 1998-2002.

“This ban is subject to corruption being proved but it is clearly a disproportionate punishment”, he told The Press Association.

The committee led by German judge Hans Joachim Eckert has opened proceedings in the matter and a decision is expected only next month.

Platini’s lawyers had already said that their client was “astounded” at how slow the process was for Federation Internationale de Football Association to decide on his appeal against the suspension.

There is, however, a precedent for the court of arbitration for sport upholding a lifetime ban for corruption, against Vernon Manilal Fernando, a close associate of Qatar’s Bin Hammam from Sri Lanka.

Carrard’s proposals, which could include taking some decision-making away from the executive committee, and imposing age and term limits on senior officials, will be sent to the Federation Internationale de Football Association congress on February 26 for approval.

Blatter also faces a Swiss criminal investigation over the matter.

Infantino has said he will step aside should Platini be admitted to the election.