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Sepp Blatter in last fight against FIFA ban
Posted On Aug 25 2016
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“We are football players, we learned to win but also we learned to lose and it will not be the end of the world”, Blatter said outside CAS.
“My name wouldn’t be Sepp Blatter if I didn’t have faith, if I wasn’t optimistic”, the 80-year-old told reporters as he arrived for the hearing.
Platini left CAS after testifying at around 4:30 pm, but made time for some mild mocking of Blatter’s stubble. Several dozen football officials, including former FIFA executive committee members, and entities were indicted in the United States on corruption-related charges past year. Both men, who have denied wrongdoing, were initially banned for eight years, later reduced to six by FIFA’s own appeals committee.
In a May ruling CAS judges said they were “not convinced” that the $2 million payment was legitimate.
Sepp Blatter is back in court on Thursday in a final bid for redemption as he seeks to overturn a six-year ban from football following more than a year of scandal. They claimed it was for backdated and uncontracted salary for work Platini did in advising Blatter from 1999 to 2002.
The three-member panel for Blatter’s case is expected to respect the verdict of a separate panel which judged Platini.
Blatter denies wrongdoing in authorising a $2 million (CHF1.9 million) payment to former Federation Internationale de Football Association vice president Platini in 2011.
Blatter and Platini insist it was a legitimate payment for an unpaid balance that Federation Internationale de Football Association owed the UEFA boss for consulting work done a decade earlier. By imposing a four-year ban, the CAS panel ensured UEFA had to replace Platini, rather than wait for him to return.
Blatter and Platini were both sanctioned for an alleged “disloyal” payment of CHF2 million (£1.6 million/$2.1 million/€1.8 million) made to the Frenchman by the Swiss in 2011.
“So far in the Federation Internationale de Football Association committees, in the ethics committee and in the appeal committee, they were saying: we don’t believe that”.
