Banned former Federation Internationale de Football Association president Sepp Blatter made his long-awaited appearance before sport’s highest tribunal, the Court of Arbitration of Sport (CAS), today in a last-ditch appeal to clear his name.
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He added: “I will accept the verdict, but I do hope it will be positive for me”. “We learn to win but also we learn to lose”, he said.
Blatter was banned for eight years last year by the FIFA Ethics Committee over a 2 million Swiss francs payment ($2.72 million) to former UEFA chief Michel Platini, which was made nine years after consultancy work was carried out.
Platini was also banned by Federation Internationale de Football Association because of the payment affair but his appearance at CAS only led to the suspension being cut to four years.
However, the CAS panel that heard Platini’s appeal backed the original Federation Internationale de Football Association decision that the payment – which was supposedly the balance Platini was owed for consultancy work he did between 1999 and 2002 – was not legitimate.
In the same interview, Blatter also claimed he could “understand that the Americans are not always happy with what’s happened somewhere in the world because they try to be the police of the world everywhere”, but he “couldn’t understand that the Swiss authorities had agreed”.
The three-member panel for Blatter’s case is expected to respect the verdict of a separate panel which judged Platini.
“I’m not sure if a decision hasn’t already been made, even before” the hearing, the 61-year-old said.
Blatter was head of football’s governing body for 17 years until he resigned in June last year.
“This is a principle, if you have debts you pay them”, Blatter said. FIFA’s appeal committee cut both bans to six years.
Blatter was succeeded by former UEFA general secretary Gianni Infantino as Federation Internationale de Football Association president in February, following a tenure spanning more than 17 years.
An investigation commissioned by Infantino’s administration also accused Blatter and two top deputies – Jerome Valcke and Markus Kattner – of awarding themselves almost Dollars 80 million worth of improper salary increases and bonuses during their final five years in office.
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Prosecutors in NY have since indicted 40 football and sports marketing executives over allegedly receiving tens of millions of bribes and kickbacks.
