Michel Platini's camp hit back at claims he faces a long suspension from FIFA

Michel Platini has reacted with anger to a spokesman for FIFA's ethics committee predicting he faces being suspended "for many years".

 

 

Spokesman Andreas Bantel told French sports newspaper L'Equipe the UEFA president is facing a heavy punishment from football's world governing body.

The ethics committee is to hear a disciplinary case against Frenchman Platini next week over a £1.3million payment he received in 2011 from FIFA, signed off by Sepp Blatter. 

Platini insists the payment was owed from an oral agreement he made with Blatter, the organisation's president, when he started working as FIFA's technical advisor in 1998.

Friday saw 60-year-old Platini learn he had failed in his bid to have a provisional 90-day ban from all football activity lifted, when the Court of Arbitration for Sport upheld the sanction imposed by the ethics committee.

 

FIFA President Sepp Blatter gestures during a news conference after the Extraordinary FIFA Executive Committee Meeting at the FIFA headquarters in Zurich, Switzerland July 20, 201 - Reuters

Bantel said in L'Equipe that Platini, who has maintained his innocence, had no way out, claiming the former France player would be facing other criminal charges even if he is not found guilty over the payment by FIFA.

"All of this is enough to suspend Blatter and Platini for several years," said Bantel. "Platini will certainly be suspended for several years. With Blatter, there's no difference for him between many years and a life ban."

But Platini said via a statement that he and his lawyers had learned "with anger and dismay" of the comments from Bantel. 

L'Equipe quoted a statement from the Platini camp as saying: "These words are a patent violation of the presumption of innocence. They show however the political objective pursued by the ethics committee, for which contradictory debate and the hearing that it has itself arranged for December 18 will clearly not be of any use.

"Mr Platini, whose sanction seems to have already been arranged by the FIFA ethics committee even before the explanations have been heard, firmly denounces these practices which bring to light the sham of the procedure of which he has been the subject for weeks."

 

Share on Google Plus

About Unknown

This is a short description in the author block about the author. You edit it by entering text in the "Biographical Info" field in the user admin panel.