FIFA reduces suspensions for Blatter, Platini to 6 years

The FIFA appeals committee has announced that outgoing president Sepp Blatter and UEFA president Michel Platini have had their eight-year bans reduced to six.

The news comes two days before an election will be held at the FIFA Extraordinary Congress in Zurich to determine Blatter’s replacement.

Both Blatter and Platini have constantly denied wrongdoing and claimed they had a verbal deal for additional salary that former France great Platini would receive for working as Blatter’s presidential adviser from 1999-2002.

“In reality, it is a political decision taken by a bureaucracy that has no counterweight at the heart of its organization”.

“I am the victim of a system which has only had one goal – to stop me standing for the president of Fifa”, Platini added.

Platini said he would pursue all possible means to appeal, starting with CAS, and that he had asked his legal team to launch an appeal to the Lausanne-based court “without waiting”.

Federation Internationale de Football Association also fined Platini 80,000 Swiss Francs (£58,300) and Blatter 50,000 Swiss Francs (£36,400). If, as I think, this injustice profits certain people, then that would be called a scandal.

Both men have insisted they are innocent, launching appeals to the FIFA Appeals Committee, which upheld the findings of the Ethics Committee that they breached FCE articles relating to offering and accepting gifts and other benefits; conflicts of interests; loyalty; and general rules of conduct.

Despite presenting himself as untainted by Fifa’s dodgy dealings due to only arriving at the top table recently, Sheikh Salman bin Ibrahim al-Khalifa has been accused of dobbing in athletes who were involved in pro-democracy protests in Bahrain in 2011.

FIFA’s ethics committee earlier this month recommended life bans from football for the pair, who each pleaded guilty to charges of racketeering conspiracy and wire fraud conspiracy in December, having been indicted as part of the long-running criminal investigation into corruption within FIFA.