ZURICH: FIFA president Sepp Blatter and European football boss Michel Platini were both banned for eight years by the FIFA ethics committee on Monday, leaving the global game leaderless as it struggles with a swirl of corruption cases.

Blatter and his one-time protégé Platini were kicked out of the sport for conflict of interest and disloyalty to FIFA in a $2 million payment deal that is also the subject of a criminal investigation in Switzerland.

The sentence against the two of world football’s most powerful leaders stunningly highlighted the troubles faced by the world’s most popular sport where billions of dollars have been invested in recent years.

Both men were defiant in response to the verdict, with each saying they will appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport, and insisting they had done nothing wrong.

“I will fight,” Blatter told a news conference in Zurich. “I will fight until the end.”

Platini described the proceedings as a “true mockery.”

Blatter invoked Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King and the United Nations in a spirited 52-minute performance holding court with international media. He also said he will challenge his ban at the FIFA appeal committee.

His last words were: “I’ll be back, thank you.”

Blatter’s trademark fighting talk was delivered while still sporting a strip of surgical tape on his right cheek after a minor medical procedure five days earlier.

Still, his 17 years at the helm of world football will end in disgrace.

Blatter made it clear he regretted his current position but declared he was innocent of any wrongdoing.

The Swiss, who spent four decades at FIFA, told reporters that he had become a “punching ball” and that he was “sorry for FIFA”, shaken by an unprecedented scandal which has seen 39 people indicted by the US justice department over corruption and bribery going back decades.

Days after the scandal kicked off in May, Blatter promised to stand down when his successor was chosen by FIFA’s 209-member associations at a congress later set for February.

“I am not ashamed,” he said. “I am sorry that I am a punching ball. I am sorry for football... I am now suspended eight years, suspended eight years. Suspended eight years for what?”

Platini was also dismissive of the ethics commission’s work.

He said its proceedings, which included a hearing earlier this month that he did not attend, had been “orchestrated... by governing bodies that I know well” to tarnish him.

“I’m convinced that my fate was sealed before the Dec 18 hearing and that this decision is just a pathetic manoeuvre to hide a true will of taking me out of the football world,” the Frenchman said.

“My behaviour has always been faultless and I’m at peace with my own conscience.”

Platini, who also said he will file a lawsuit in a civil court to seek damages for what he had endured, now looks unlikely to succeed in his bid to replace Blatter in the Feb 26 presidential election.

In a brief statement, UEFA said it was “extremely disappointed” with the ruling and supported its leader’s right to clear his name.

FIFA’s ethics judges decided that Blatter and Platini broke ethics rules on conflicts of interest, breach of loyalty and offering or receiving gifts.

Platini took $2 million of FIFA money in 2011 approved by Blatter as uncontracted salary for work as a presidential adviser from 1999-2002.

In Monday’s verdict, Blatter was fined 50,000 Swiss francs ($50,250) and Platini 80,000 Swiss francs ($80,400).

“Neither in his written statement nor in his personal hearing was Mr. Blatter able to demonstrate another legal basis for this payment,” the judges said.

“By failing to place FIFA’s interests first and abstain from doing anything which could be contrary to FIFA’s interests, Mr. Blatter violated his fiduciary duty to FIFA.

“His [Blatter’s] assertion of an oral agreement was determined as not convincing and was rejected by the chamber.”

Blatter acknowledged an administrative “error” in failing to register FIFA’s debt to Platini in its accounts for eight years, though he insisted: “This is nothing to do with the ethics regulations.”

Blatter, who turns 80 in March, said he wants to preside over the FIFA congress on Feb 26 where his successor will be elected.

“Let me work at this Congress. Let me do it,” Blatter said in an interview with Sky News, restating his desire to leave FIFA on his own terms.

The 60-year-old Platini wants to clear his name, pass a FIFA integrity check and be declared an official candidate in the election he had been favoured to win.

Platini’s campaign has stalled since he was questioned on Sept. 25 in a Swiss federal investigation of suspected criminal mismanagement at FIFA.

Following Monday’s ruling, the British bookmaker William Hill made Sheikh Salman bin Ebrahim al Khalifa, president of the Asian Football Confederation, the 6-5 favourite, followed by Jordan’s Prince Ali al Hussein on 13-8 and UEFA General Secretary Gianni Infantino, of Switzerland, on 5-2.

Switzerland’s attorney general has opened criminal proceedings against Blatter for the suspected “disloyal payment” of FIFA money to Platini and selling undervalued World Cup TV rights for the Caribbean.

Platini was paid in February 2011, just before Blatter began campaigning for re-election against Mohamed bin Hammam of Qatar.

Platini’s UEFA urged its members weeks before the June 2011 election to back Blatter, who was elected unopposed when Bin Hammam was implicated in bribery.

Few FIFA officials knew of the Platini payment which emerged during a wider Swiss probe of the governing body’s business affairs, including suspected money laundering in the 2018 and 2022 World Cup bidding contests.

Blatter said Monday that a Swiss bank where Platini held an account had been required to report the seven-figure payment to comply with monitoring of money laundering.

Published in Dawn, December 22nd, 2015