Platini allowed to address UEFA Congress as ‘gesture of humanity’

Having exhausted all potential avenues to get his suspension overthrown, Platini confirmed he would stand down as UEFA President.

Platini lost his CAS appeal against his Federation Internationale de Football Association ban earlier this year, but the court cut his suspension to four years.

A source close to Platini, now serving a four-year ban, said last week he would attend the meeting of European football’s governing body, when the Uefa executive committee will vote on his successor.

Michel Platini has been given permission by FIFA’s ethics committee to address the UEFA Congress in Athens this week despite his four-year ban from all football-related activity. Instead, his former general secretary at UEFA, Gianni Infantino was voted to the top job in February.

The ban has been reduced on appeal to four years and Platini is willing to risk breaking it by accepting a UEFA invitation to make a goodbye speech at UEFA’s Extraordinary Congress in Greece.

“The FIFA Ethics Committee has informed UEFA that Michel Platini will be allowed to address the 12th Extraordinary UEFA Congress in Athens on 14 September”, read a statement from UEFA.

The ethics committee of soccer’s governing body said an exception had been made for Wednesday’s event following a request from UEFA.

FIFA’s ethics committee said the payment, made at a time when Blatter was seeking re-election, lacked transparency and presented conflicts of interest.

“The chairman of the adjudicatory chamber, Mr Hans-Joachim Eckert, granted this exception as a gesture of humanity”.

The two have always denied wrongdoing and said the payment was made for consultancy work Platini had carried out for Blatter between 1998 and 2002, and that they had a “gentleman’s agreement” on when the balance was settled.

After being led since 2007 by Platini, a former France captain, UEFA’s next president will be a largely unknown administrator – either UEFA vice-president Michael van Praag of the Netherlands or Slovenian federation leader Aleksander Ceferin.

His manifesto, entitled Building Bridges, focuses on areas such as connection, football development and what he calls UEFA “back to basics”.