Johannesburg : FIFA’s embattled president Sepp Blatter and his UEFA counterpart Michel Platini have been banned from all football-related activities for eight years on Monday.
Blatter and Platini were serving a 90-day provisional ban handed by the FIFA’s ethics committee over claims that the latter had received a ‘ disloyal payment ‘ of 1.35 million pounds from the outgoing president in 2011.
Both had earlier denied any wrongdoing and insisted that the payment had been legitimate following an oral contract.
However, the FIFA ethics committee found that both showed ‘abusive execution’ of their powers and stated that the ‘assertion of an oral agreement was determined as not convincing and was rejected by the chamber’, Sport24 reported.
In addition to the lengthy bans, Blatter and Platini have been fined 50,000 and 80,000 Swiss francs respectively.
Both had previously said they would make an appeal against any sanctions.
With the ban, Platini’s hopes of succeeding Blatter as the president of the world football governing body in the upcoming election have been derailed. (ANI)