Platini Takes Appeal to CAS; Blatter Hearing Next Week

(ATR) Michel Platini’s lawyers will today seek to temporarily lift his 90-day FIFA ethics committee suspension at the Court of Arbitration for Sport.

Platini’s legal team and FIFA’s lawyers will attend a preliminary hearing in this afternoon.

"A decision on such request for a stay is likely to be issued on Friday 11 December, at the latest," CAS said.

If granted, the UEFA president may attend the Euro 2016 draw in Paris on Saturday.

The 60-year-old was handed a 90-day ban with Sepp Blatter in October pending inquiries into a "disloyal payment" of $2.1 million made by FIFA to Platini in 2011 for work he did as an advisor to the FIFA president between 1998 and 2002. Blatter described it as a "gentleman’s agreement". It was paid a few months before the 2011 FIFA presidential election; the Frenchman decided not to stand against Blatter. Both men deny wrongdoing.

Platini’s lawyer will cite new evidence revealed by French newspaper, Journal du Dimanche, that UEFA's executive committee were informed in 1998 of a salary of one million Swiss francs for Platini to work as a consultant to Blatter.

FIFA’s electoral committee may consider reviewing Platini’s case if he successfully appeals the suspension. But his chances of being a presidential candidate in the Feb. 26 FIFA election remain slim.

Blatter and Platini will take their legal teams to hearings before the FIFA ethics committee in Zurich between Dec. 16-18.

"Both together with their lawyers will be granted the possibility to present their views in front of the adjudicatory chamber," a FIFA ethics spokesman tells Around the Rings. They will make their cases before four or five judges on a panel led by FIFA ethics adjudicatory chamber chair Hans Joachim-Eckert.

"A judgement can be expected before Christmas," he added.

FIFA's ethics investigators are said to be seeking lifetime bans for Blatter and Platini.

Such sanctions may be handed down if they breached Section 21 of FIFA’s Code of Ethics on ‘bribery and corruption’, which states: "Persons bound by this code must not offer, promise, give or accept any personal or undue pecuniary or other advantage in order to obtain or retain business or any other improper advantage to or from anyone within or outside FIFA".

Written by Mark Bisson

20 Years at #1: Your best source of news about the Olympics is AroundTheRings.com, for subscribers only.