EU: Uefa president to resign after ban appeal fails

The Uefa president, Michel Platini, will finally resign from his post after losing his battle to appeal against his ban from all football over a “disloyal payment” from his former Fifa counterpart Sepp Blatter.

After the court of arbitration for sport upheld the ban but reduced the sanction from six years to four, Platini again protested his innocence and railed against a “profound injustice”.

The Frenchman had originally been the runaway favourite to replace Blatter when the Swiss resigned in the wake of the meltdown that followed police raids on the Baur au Lac hotel in Zurich in February 2015.

But Platini, who said he would fight on in the Swiss courts to clear his name, was then suspended and later banned after Swiss authorities opened a criminal investigation into Blatter’s payment of 2m Swiss franc in 2011.

The so-called “disloyal payment” was based on a verbal agreement between the two men relating to a period when Platini acted as a special adviser to Blatter between 1999 and 2002. The payment was made in addition to the salary Platini was paid during the period.

The three-man Cas panel said it was “not convinced of the legitimacy” of the oral deal and found that Platini had obtained an “undue advantage” and there been a conflict of interest that was in breach of two articles of the Fifa ethics code.

Full Content: BBC

Want more news? Subscribe to CPI’s free daily newsletter for more headlines and updates on antitrust developments around the world.