Russian sports minister Vitaly Mutko believes Sepp Blatter and Michel Platini do not deserve the eight-year bans imposed upon them by FIFA’s Independent Ethics Committee.
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As FIFA bans Blatter and Plantini, it ends Blatter’s career of 17 years leading world soccer in a disgraceful manner.
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Responding to the ban at a press conference on Monday morning a dishevelled looking Blatter said: “I’m sorry that I am still a punching ball”. It seems unbelievable. But it does not surprise me as the ethics commission had already announced that Michel would be suspended for several years.
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Blatter claimed that people working for Federation Internationale de Football Association “couldn’t understand why the president is suspended” and cited the strain placed upon his family and his own health by the investigation. “The procedure initiated against me by FIFA’s Ethics Committee is a pure masquerade”, he said. He also labeled the disciplinary process “pathetic” and said the decision against him went against “all legitimacy and credibility”. Platini says it was money he was owed but he’d forgotten to invoice for it. He’d somehow forgotten to invoice for three million dollars that he was owed nine years ago.
It said Blatter “found himself in a situation of conflict of interest, despite which he continued to perform his related duties, failing to disclose said situation and the existence of personal interests linked to his prospective activities”.
Furthermore, assertions from Blatter and Platini of an oral agreement were “determined as not convincing and rejected by the chamber”.
The Committee had been investigating an uncontracted payment of $2 million Blatter made to Platini in February 2011 for Platini’s work as an advisor in 1999-2002.
And the 79-year-old – who also took a moment to congratulate Barcelona on winning the Club World Cup at the weekend – told reporters from around the world that he was “a man of principles”. The payment is also the subject of a criminal investigation in Switzerland.
Asked who the FA will support in February’s presidential elections, Dyke added: “Having opted early for Mr Platini, we haven’t decided who we are going to support yet”.
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Regarding Blatter’s prospective CAS challenge, a spokesman for Fifa’s ethics prosecutors, Andreas Bantel, said he first needed to read the motivation of such an appeal before commenting.
