Platini Appeals to Sport Court to Overturn Ban

 Disgraced former UEFA president Michel Platini has filed an appeal at the Court of Arbitration for Sport in
a bid to overturn his six-year ban for accepting an illegal payment from Sepp Blatter.

Platini’s ban was cut from eight to six years by the FIFA Appeal Committee on Feb. 24. Blatter also had his sanction reduced by the same margin over the “disloyal” $2 million payment agreed orally between them and executed in 2011 for consultancy work Platini carried out for Blatter from 1998-2002.

The FIFA Appeal Committee said the services they had rendered to FIFA, UEFA and football in general over the years “should deserve appropriate recognition as a mitigating factor”.

Both had 21 days to appeal to the CAS. Blatter has yet to confirm his appeal to sports highest court.

FIFA’s ethics committee could yet appeal to the CAS for an increase in the length of the ban; the adjudicatory had previously called for lifetime suspensions for the pair.

“In appealing to the CAS, Michel Platini seeks to annul the decisions taken by the adjudicatory chamber of the FIFA Ethics Committee and by the FIFA Appeal Committee which lead to him being declared ineligible to take part in football-related activity at national and international level for six years,” a statement from the CAS said on Wednesday.

Platini and his lawyers will be asked to present written submissions in his defence while a panel of three arbitrators is constituted. A hearing at the Lausanne court will follow before the CAS panel announces its verdict, which could come before the end of the month.

Because of their global football bans, neither Platini or Blatter were present at the FIFA Extraordinary Congress last Friday in Zurich where the Frenchman’s former right-hand man, Gianni Infantino, was elected as president of world football’s governing body.