LAUSANNE: European football chief Michel Platini failed on Friday in his bid to have a 90-day provisional suspension from world football lifted, further denting his hopes of running for the presidency of the game’s scandal-hit global governing body FIFA.

The decision by the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS), the top body for settling sports-related disputes, means Platini will not be able to attend Saturday’s draw for the Euro 2016 championships.

That occasion would have given him the opportunity to promote his ambition to succeed veteran leader Sepp Blatter at a vote in February.

Platini, barred for 90 days during an investigation centring on a 2 million Swiss franc ($1.97 million) payment from FIFA to Platini, cannot run for the presidency while under suspension.

FIFA is suffering the worst corruption scandal in its over 100-year history, drawing in top officials and triggering investigations by US and Swiss authorities.

“I am disappoined, I regret that Michel cannot be at the Euro 2016 draw tomorrow because he deserved it so much,” French federation president Noel Le Graet told reporters at a UEFA executive committee meeting in Paris. “It would have been a nice symbol to have him present at the draw.”

Platini and Blatter have been suspended since Oct 8, engulfed by a deepening corruption scandal as the sport faces criminal investigations in Switzerland and the United States.

The CAS ordered FIFA not to extend its 90-day provisional suspension on Platini, saying doing so would be an unjustified restriction of his access to justice.

Friday’s ruling means that Platini’s only realistic hope of re-entering the presidential race is if he is cleared when a FIFA ethics committee makes its final ruling on his case, which is expected to happen just before Christmas.

If FIFA’s ethics committee fails to clear Platini and Blatter, who both say they have done nothing wrong, both men could face bans of several years if found guilty of wrongdoing.

Blatter has said there was a verbal agreement between the two while Platini says the payment was delayed several years only because of financial problems at FIFA.

FIFA’s electoral commission said in October that, in the case of the ban being lifted, it “would decide, depending on the respective exact point in time, on how to proceed with the candidacy concerned.”

STILL HOPEFUL?

Platini’s ban ends 52 days before the election for a new FIFA president and his camp voiced optimism after the ruling.

“Michel Platini knows he will ultimately be exonerated”, his lawyer Thibaud d’Ales said.

D’Ales also highlighted CAS’s order against FIFA extending the provisional ban.

He claimed that given the emergence of new evidence in Platini’s favour — a 1998 UEFA document this week — FIFA’s ethics judges would not be able to issue a ruling before January 5.

The FIFA statement said the ethics court “intends to come to a decision during the month of December,” without mentioning a possible delay.

FIFA opened the investigation into Platini after Swiss prosecutors said he had been questioned over a 2 million Swiss franc payment Platini received from FIFA in 2011 for work done a decade earlier.

Blatter and Platini acknowledge there was no contract for the fee, but insist that their “oral contract” is valid under Swiss law.

According to Platini’s entourage, the new evidence proves the legitimacy of the oral contract with Blatter.

Separately, Switzerland’s attorney general announced new moves on Friday to gather evidence from FIFA and UEFA in a case which led to criminal proceedings being opened against the duo.

Platini’s lawyers said last weekend they had a memo from a UEFA meeting in November 1998 when he had no links to the European body.

It noted that he would soon be appointed FIFA sports director and be paid 1 million Swiss francs (about $1 million).

Swiss attorney general Michael Lauber now has documents which Platini’s legal team say supported the claim that his salary deal — which deferred some payment and was not part of a written contract — was not secret.

“The OAG [office of attorney general] served a formal request on UEFA and documents have already been handed over and seized,” Lauber’s office said Friday in a statement.

Lauber has also asked FIFA to explain how Platini came to be appointed and in what role, starting in January 1999.

“Ultimately, Michel Platini was not appointed FIFA sports director,” Lauber’s office said, adding it wanted “information on the specifications of the position of sports director, on the decision not to appoint Michel Platini to the position, and on the grounds for this decision.”

Published in Dawn, December 12th, 2015