Michel Platini will not be able to resume his reign as UEFA president despite the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) reducing his six-year ban from football to four years.
UEFA president Platini and his FIFA counterpart Sepp Blatter were given eight-year bans from all football by FIFA’s ethics committee last December.
Those sanctions were reduced to six years by a FIFA appeals panel in February but both men immediately took their cases to CAS.
With Platini, 60, desperate to continue as UEFA president, his case moved more quickly than Blatter’s, and CAS said in a statement on Monday that Platini’s suspension, which covers all football-related activity, had been reduced from six to four years and his fine reduced from 80,000 Swiss francs to 60,000 Swiss francs.
The cases centre on a payment of two million Swiss francs, worth $1m or £1.25m at the time, made by Blatter’s FIFA to Platini in 2011 for consultancy services provided from 1998 to 2002.
The timing of the payment coincided with Platini confirming he would not oppose Blatter’s re-election as FIFA president, but both men insisted that was not a factor.
In December, FIFA’s ethics panel imposed the eight-year bans and said both had breached responsibilities of loyalty, and had performed an “abusive execution” of their roles.
The view was upheld by the FIFA appeal panel in February, although their bans were reduced on account of their services to football.
However, Platini, who was elected unopposed for a third four-year UEFA term in 2015, needed his ban to be completely overturned by CAS to see out that term.
His presence at the European Championship in his native France next month would have been mainly ceremonial but his enforced absence is a bitter blow for a man who led the expansion of the competition from 16 to 24 teams.
With new FIFA president Gianni Infantino’s former deputy Theodore Theodoridis now running UEFA as an interim general secretary, European football’s governing body is set to discuss its next move at a meeting in Basel on May 18, the day of the Europa League final between Liverpool and Sevilla.
Source: espn
