Fifa upheld charges against Sepp Blatter & Michel Platini but reduce their ban period

Fifa upholds the charges against Fifa president Sepp Blatter and suspended Uefa boss Michel Platini by discarding their appeals of being innocent.

Fifa president and Uefa president banned from all football-related activities, after payment of 2 million Swiss Francs in February 2011 from Fifa to Platini, authorised by Blatter in December last year.

The bans have been imposed by Fifa’s ethics judge Hans-Joachim Eckert for a “disloyal payment” of £1.3 million in Swiss Francs made to Uefa president Platini in 2011, signed off by outgoing Fifa president Blatter.

Following that charge they both denied any wrongdoing and have said they will appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport.

Blatter said in a statement through his spokesman: “I am very disappointed by the appeal committee of FIFA and I will take it to the Court of Arbitration for Sport in Lausanne.”

Platini also released a statement through his legal team. “The reasons given against me are baseless, trumped up and surreal, given the facts and explanations that I gave during the hearing of the appeals board,” he said. “This decision is in reality a political decision taken by the FIFA administration.

“I am the victim of a system that had only one goal: To prevent me from becoming FIFA president in order to protect certain interests that I was about to bring into question.”

Despite the strong charges made by Fifa they both claimed that the payment was made following a verbal agreement between the pair when the Frenchman worked for Blatter from 1998 to 2002 though not paid until nine years later.

The explanation was rejected as “not convincing” by the ethics committee, though it did add the evidence had not been sufficient to secure charges of corruption.

After re examining the whole issue the Fifa’s appeals committee upholds all the charges against both of them but bans were reduced by two years after the committee considered the duo’s “activities and services rendered to Fifa, Uefa and football”.