{"id":15939,"date":"2015-12-22T09:02:19","date_gmt":"2015-12-22T17:02:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spijue.wpengine.com\/news\/court-bans-blatter-platini-for-8-years\/"},"modified":"2015-12-22T09:02:19","modified_gmt":"2015-12-22T17:02:19","slug":"court-bans-blatter-platini-for-8-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/news\/court-bans-blatter-platini-for-8-years\/","title":{"rendered":"Court bans Blatter, Platini for 8 years"},"content":{"rendered":"

ZURICH<\/strong> \u2014 Banished from soccer\u2019s ruling body for eight years for unethical conduct, Sepp Blatter won\u2019t give up the presidency of his beloved FIFA without a fight.<\/p>\n

\u201cI will fight. I will fight until the end,\u201d Blatter said Monday at a news conference that started 90 minutes after he and former protege Michel Platini were each banned by FIFA\u2019s ethics committee.<\/p>\n

It was a stunning removal of world soccer\u2019s most powerful leaders over a $2 million payment by FIFA to Platini, the president of European soccer\u2019s ruling body UEFA. The payment is also the subject of a criminal investigation in Switzerland.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m sad. It can\u2019t go on this way. It\u2019s not possible,\u201d said the 79-year-old Blatter, who has spent more than half his life working for soccer\u2019s scandal-hit governing body. \u201cAfter 40 years, it can\u2019t happen this way. I\u2019m fighting to restore my rights.\u201d<\/p>\n

Already serving a provisional ban, the elected FIFA president and his long-time likely successor were kicked out of the sport just two months before 209 member federations elect a new leader.<\/p>\n

Platini, a FIFA vice president whose bid to succeed Blatter on Feb. 26 now looks over, described the proceedings as a \u201ctrue mockery.\u201d<\/p>\n

Their offences were judged to be conflict of interest and disloyalty to FIFA. They avoided life bans because corruption was not proven.<\/p>\n

Platini\u2019s lawyer, Thibaud d\u2019Ales, told The Associated Press it came as no surprise that the corruption charge had been dropped.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey used it with the sole purpose of dirtying Michel Platini, although they knew from the start it was an untenable argument,\u201d D\u2019Ales said.<\/p>\n

Guilty verdicts were expected. So were the subsequent denials of wrongdoing and promises of urgent appeals to FIFA and the Court of Arbitration for Sport.<\/p>\n

Blatter\u2019s defiant display was a bonus for international media summoned to FIFA\u2019s former headquarters, just hundreds of meters (yards) from the new building where he spent eight hours with four ethics judges last Thursday.<\/p>\n

The choice of venue hinted at a vintage Blatter show. He did not disappoint.<\/p>\n

Blatter invoked Nelson Mandela within a minute, pointing to the spot where the iconic South African leader had lifted the World Cup trophy 11 years ago, when his country was chosen as the host nation for the 2010 tournament.<\/p>\n

Martin Luther King\u2019s \u201cI have a dream\u201d speech, the Nobel organization and the United Nations were also referenced in a spirited 52-minute performance as he held court with more than 100 journalists.<\/p>\n

His last words were \u201cI\u2019ll be back, thank you.\u201d<\/p>\n

Blatter\u2019s trademark fighting talk was delivered while still sporting a strip of surgical tape on his right cheek after a minor medical procedure five days earlier.<\/p>\n

Blatter made it clear he regretted his current position but declared he was innocent of any wrongdoing.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am not ashamed,\u201d he said. \u201cI am sorry that I am a punching ball. I am sorry for football. … I am now suspended eight years, suspended eight years. Suspended eight years for what?\u201d<\/p>\n

Platini was also dismissive of the ethics commission\u2019s work.<\/p>\n

He said its proceedings, which included a hearing earlier this month that he did not attend, had been \u201corchestrated… by governing bodies that I know well\u201d to tarnish him.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m convinced that my fate was sealed before the Dec. 18 hearing and that this decision is just a pathetic maneuver to hide a true will of taking me out of the football world,\u201d the Frenchman said.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy behavior has always been faultless and I\u2019m at peace with my own conscience.\u201d<\/p>\n

Platini said he will also file a lawsuit in a civil court to seek damages for what he has endured during the ethics commission\u2019s proceedings. In a brief statement, UEFA said it was \u201cextremely disappointed\u201d with the ruling and supported its leader\u2019s right to clear his name.<\/p>\n

FIFA\u2019s ethics judges decided that Blatter and Platini had broken ethics rules on conflicts of interest, breach of loyalty and offering or receiving gifts.<\/p>\n

Platini took $2 million of FIFA money in 2011 – a payment approved by Blatter as uncontracted salary for work as a presidential adviser from 1999-2002.<\/p>\n

In Monday\u2019s verdict, Blatter was fined 50,000 Swiss francs ($50,250) and Platini 80,000 Swiss francs ($80,400).<\/p>\n

\u201cNeither in his written statement nor in his personal hearing was Mr. Blatter able to demonstrate another legal basis for this payment,\u201d the judges said. \u201cBy failing to place FIFA\u2019s interests first and abstain from doing anything which could be contrary to FIFA\u2019s interests, Mr. Blatter violated his fiduciary duty to FIFA.<\/p>\n

\u201cHis (Blatter\u2019s) assertion of an oral agreement was determined as not convincing and was rejected by the chamber.\u201d<\/p>\n

Blatter hit back at that conclusion during his news conference, portraying the ethics committee as saying of Platini and himself: \u201cHe\u2019s a liar and I\u2019m a liar.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is not correct,\u201d Blatter said.<\/p>\n

Blatter acknowledged an administrative \u201cerror\u201d in failing to register FIFA\u2019s debt to Platini in its accounts for eight years, though he insisted: \u201cThis is nothing to do with the ethics regulations.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Swiss had started tentatively and the grey bristles on his chin – that clearly showed he hadn\u2019t shaven that morning – added to his aged appearance.<\/p>\n

Yet his voice grew stronger, seeming to take heart from gentle prompts and notes given by his only child, daughter Corinne, sitting to his left.<\/p>\n

He spoke in four languages and translated his own German, French and Spanish answers into English, clearly relishing the attention of a big audience again.<\/p>\n

By the end, with his top shirt button undone and tie loose, it was possible to forget that Blatter had faced a health scare on Nov. 1.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am back, I am back, I am doing better,\u201d he said. \u201cI have the support of my daughter, I have the support of Linda (Barras), my love.\u201d<\/p>\n

While Blatter wants to leave FIFA with his head high, the 60-year-old Platini wants to clear his name, pass a FIFA integrity check and be declared an official candidate in the election he had been favored to win.<\/p>\n

Platini\u2019s campaign has stalled since he was questioned on Sept. 25 in a Swiss federal investigation of suspected criminal mismanagement at FIFA.<\/p>\n

Switzerland\u2019s attorney general has opened criminal proceedings against Blatter for the suspected \u201cdisloyal payment\u201d of FIFA money to Platini and selling undervalued World Cup TV rights for the Caribbean.<\/p>\n

Platini was paid in February 2011, just before Blatter began campaigning for re-election against Mohamed bin Hammam of Qatar. Platini\u2019s UEFA urged its members weeks before the June 2011 election to back Blatter, who was elected unopposed when Bin Hammam was implicated in bribery.<\/p>\n

Few FIFA officials knew of the Platini payment which emerged during a wider Swiss probe of the governing body\u2019s business affairs, including suspected money laundering in the 2018 and 2022 World Cup bidding contests.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have never cheated with money,\u201d Blatter insisted, before claiming he still wielded authority in the sport. \u201cI am still the president. Even if I am suspended, I am still the president.\u201d<\/p>\n

__<\/p>\n

AP Sports Writer Samuel Petrequin contributed from Paris.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

ZURICH \u2014 Banished from soccer\u2019s ruling body for eight years for unethical conduct, Sepp Blatter won\u2019t give up the presidency of his beloved FIFA without a fight. \u201cI will fight. I will fight until the end,\u201d Blatter said Monday at a news<\/a> conference that started 90 minutes after he and former protege Michel Platini were […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":107,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":4,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-15939","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15939","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/107"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15939"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15939\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15939"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15939"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15939"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=15939"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}