Suspended FIFA President Sepp Blatter was banned from world football for eight years on Monday, "completing his downfall after 17 years at the pinnacle of the sport," according to Malcolm Moore of the FINANCIAL TIMES. FIFA's ethics committee said it could not "conclusively prove" that Blatter was corrupt but banned him for unethical behavior, a failure to respect "all the applicable laws," and finally for "abusing his position" as FIFA president. Suspended UEFA President Michel Platini saw his hopes of succeeding Blatter at FIFA "dashed by his own eight-year ban." The two men were banned after a 2M Swiss franc payment from FIFA to Platini in Feb. '11 "came to light." While both men said the payment was for work carried out by Platini for FIFA between '98 and '02, there was "no contract and no record of the payment" in FIFA's accounts. Blatter, who will turn 80 in March, "has robustly denied any wrongdoing and challenged the power of the ethics committee to enforce a ban," insisting that only FIFA's congress could elect to remove him. He said, "I am ashamed about the committees that they do not go through the evidence presented and this committee has no right to go against the president. Let me say that I’m really sorry. I’m sorry that I’m still somewhere a punching ball. I’m sorry for football. Something that is not true cannot be proven." The ethics committee said that "neither in his written statement nor in his personal hearing was Mr Blatter able to demonstrate another legal basis for this payment [to Mr Platini]." It added, "His assertion of an oral agreement was determined as not convincing and was rejected by the chamber" (FT, 12/21). In N.Y., Sam Borden reported Blatter, who was fined 50,000 Swiss francs ($50,730), and Platini, who was fined 80,000 Swiss francs ($80,700), will appeal the verdicts to FIFA and then to the Court of Arbitration for Sport, which is based in Switzerland and "frequently arbitrates matters involving sports governance." Both men are "also likely to seek an expedited process." Blatter "wants desperately to have his name cleared so that he can host the special FIFA Congress in which his successor will be chosen." Platini, who had long been seen as "the front-runner in the election, will hope to salvage a last-ditch entry into the race." At this point, however, the suspensions "are likely" to leave Blatter and Platini "on the outside of the sport they have led for decades" (N.Y. TIMES, 12/21).
NOT GIVING UP: FOX SPORTS reported Platini also said he would appeal the ban, releasing a statement describing the FIFA decision as a "masquerade" intended to "dirty" his name. Platini: "This decision does not surprise me. I am convinced that my fate was sealed before the hearing of December 18 and that this verdict is just a pathetic coverup for a desire to eliminate me from the world of football" (FOX SPORTS, 12/21).
UEFA BACKS PLATINI: The BBC reported UEFA issued a statement, revealing it is "extremely disappointed" with the decision. The statement said, "Once again, Uefa supports Michel Platini's right to a due process and the opportunity to clear his name." Former Asian Football Confederation General Secretary Peter Velappan added, "This is very harsh, especially for Blatter because he dedicated his life to football and FIFA. Eight years is like a death sentence." Sierra Leone FA President Isha Johansen said, "I'm not saying Blatter was a saint, but the way everything has been piled on his head to make it look like it was all his fault ... I think it's most unfair." French Football Federation President Noël Le Graët added, "Michel Platini's suspension is shocking and saddens me. It seems unbelievable." FIFA reform campaigner Damian Collins and former FA Chair David Bernstein believe "it is the end for Blatter." Collins: "The fish rots from the head down and we know how rotten the head of FIFA was." Bernstein: "He's a drowning man really, there's no coming back from this. He'll fight, I'm sure of that. He's not a soft touch. He will fight but he is doomed. He is yesterday's man" (BBC, 12/21).
END OF THE ROAD?: In London, Oliver Kay wrote one reporter shouted, "Is this the end for you, Sepp?" While Blatter stayed silent, "the answer is yes." This is "not what Blatter envisaged" when he was re-elected as FIFA president for a fifth term in May or even when, recognizing his regime "was collapsing," he announced a week later that he would "lay down my mandate." Blatter always thought he would depart on his own terms, "in a manner of his choosing." He never imagined it would be like this -- "barred from office, banned from football activities for the next eight years," his 40-year career at FIFA ending in "such ignominy and shame." The same applies to Platini, "a wonderful footballer but a lousy administrator," whose ambitions of succeeding Blatter as FIFA president have been ended after he, too, was banned from all football-related activities for eight years. It has been a "drawn-out process, but that does not lessen the significance" of Monday’s developments. What stuck out at Blatter's press conference Monday morning was his insistence "not only that he had been wronged but his remarkable claim that the ethics committee could not do this to him." That is "the problem." Blatter built a "self-perpetuating empire in which he believed he was untouchable." For years, "he was." That has slowly -- "far too slowly" -- changed in more recent times as FIFA, under "intense media and latterly legal and commercial scrutiny, found it could no longer resist moves to clean up its governance procedures" (LONDON TIMES, 12/21). Also in London, David Conn opined for Blatter, whose span at FIFA has bridged an "extraordinary 40 years, 17 as president, nothing has hurt him like the manner of his leaving." His recent, "increasingly frantic pronouncements" and a "small emotional breakdown" last month have been the "closing moments of a flailing emperor, unable to believe his power has drained away." At 79 he remains bemused that "forces of opposition he associates with devils and demons" have assailed him "right into" his FIFA HQ on his hill in Zurich and "banned him from his own kingdom." Blatter prolonged his presidency for "so long," breaking promises to step down in '06, '11 and this year, because he "became wedded" to FIFA, speaking of the organization as his fiancee, and believed he was "indispensable to its workings." It was planned to end, "if at all, at a date of his choosing, with international plaudits and preferably a Nobel prize -- never as a culprit found guilty of wrongdoing by an ethics committee he himself introduced." To his supporters, "of whom there do remain many" within the "dysfunctional 'family' of football’s world governing body," Blatter is credited with a "great legacy of developing the game globally." To Blatter’s vehement critics -- "including some respected senior figures in European football who really loathe him -- the ban by an ethics committee, which has found its backbone, represents the grubby reality of Blatter’s methods finally, far too late, catching up with him" (GUARDIAN, 12/21).
PLATINI'S DOWNFALL: In London, Owen Gibson opined Platini has "always left others to sweat the small stuff." From his "prodigiously talented playing days to his smooth rise through the administrative ranks" -- via the 1998 France World Cup organizing committee, as Blatter's right-hand man and then as the head of European football -- his ascent "has been insouciant and seemingly effortless." Indulged and "outrageously talented as a child growing up in the small town of Joeuf in north-eastern France, on the pitch he was able to use his sublime skills to escape any difficult corner." But it now seems that "a lack of attention to detail and an intrinsic belief that he plays by different rules have emerged as his fatal flaws." Platini said in '87, "When you have played football at the highest international level, everything in life seems easier afterwards. I am very rarely mistaken. I work on instinct." Little "has changed since." But if Blatter’s downfall has been "endlessly signposted," then Platini’s "has been more sudden -- at least in the eyes of much of the footballing public." As recently as late September he was a "virtual shoo-in to replace Blatter, his one-time mentor turned bitter rival," as FIFA president. France Football magazine has "taken the lead in bravely questioning one of the country’s national icons as the seductive edifice" of a "playing great turned football administrator fighting the good fight for all that is pure has crumbled." Everything "we know about Platini suggests that he probably thought he was doing nothing wrong" when he asked for that £1.35M from Blatter shortly before the '11 UEFA congress in Paris. Just as he saw "nothing wrong with his son Laurent taking a job" with a sportswear firm owned by the same Qatar sovereign wealth fund that owns Paris St. Germain 12 months after he voted for the tiny Gulf state to host the World Cup. Just as he "had no issue" with UEFA commissioning his former son-in-law to write the theme music for the Europa League. Platini is "so certain in his belief that his own motives are pure and incorruptible that he takes any suggestion that they may appear otherwise to the rest of the world as an affront to his character" (GUARDIAN, 12/21).
KANGAROO COURT: In London, Gabriele Marcotti opined in some ways, "the verdict is utterly irrelevant." This "whole sorry affair, with the charges brought against Platini and the way they’ve been handled, smacks of a kangaroo court." Ten days ago, a man named Andreas Bantel told French newspaper L’Équipe that Platini "will certainly be suspended for several years." If Bantel were "just a random guy on a corner of the Bahnhofstrasse there would be no problem." But he is not. He is the spokesperson for the investigatory chamber of the ethics committee. And he was speaking out "before Platini or his lawyer had submitted their evidence." That is like "being charged with a crime, given a court date and then having an officer of the court announcing the verdict and the sentence before the trial even begins." You "wonder, too, about some of the other ethics panel shenanigans." Blatter and Platini were provisionally suspended shortly after the Swiss Attorney General announced that the "disloyal payment" was being investigated. But, nearly three months later, "neither has been charged." And, in fact, while Blatter was named as a "suspect," Platini has been called "something between a witness and a suspect." You can "draw your own conclusion." For what it is worth -- "and maybe I've watched too many mob films -- I’d imagine that if you were going to take a bribe, you would do it either via a duffel bag filled with cash or a private, off-shore account." And if you did accept a "straight bank transfer and you went on to declare it to the revenue (as Platini did), you’d ensure the paperwork looked legitimate, perhaps by arranging a backdated counterfeit contract." The problem here is that courts and investigators "need to have some level of credibility." That is "why we have due process." If you are going to make a case against someone, "it has to stick." We have "been here before." In July '11, the ethics committee banned Mohamed bin Hammam, the Qatari football administrator and FIFA presidential candidate, for life for "allegedly making cash payments to members of the Caribbean Football Union." He appealed to CAS and, in April '12, his ban was overturned (LONDON TIMES, 12/21).
IN SPAIN: In Madrid, Baranco & Fernández reported the news of the bans "has spread like wildfire, prompting all sorts of reactions." Spanish Football League (LFP) President Javier Tebas said, "Eight years doesn't seem long enough to me. When Platini received the payment, they were both in office and they rode roughshod over the internal control regulations. That's very serious." He added, "Their punishment should have been to never be allowed inside a sporting institution again, because they don't deserve sportspeople's trust. Not just a limitation; they should be prevented from representing any sporting institution again" (MARCA, 12/21).
