Former soccer czar Sepp Blatter banned from FIFA for 8 years
After decades of alleged wrongdoing, the architect of modern soccer has been
booted out of the organization he helped build. Former FIFA President Sepp Blatter has been banned for eight years.
The ban — which turned on Blatter’s alleged $2 million payment, now under criminal investigation in Switzerland, to protege Michel Platini, a FIFA vice president, in 2011 — took immediate effect. It was instituted by an ethics committee Blatter himself helped create.
“Neither in his written statement nor in his personal hearing was Mr Blatter able to demonstrate another legal basis for this payment,” FIFA wrote in a press release. “His assertion of an oral agreement was determined as not convincing and was rejected by the chamber.”
As the BBC explained, charges included conflict of interest and false accounting. Blatter called the payment a “gentlemen’s agreement“; though the money was ostensibly for advising work completed between 1999 and 2002, some said Blatter paid Platini to support Blatter’s campaign for FIFA’s presidency.
Plantini, 60, was also banned for eight years. He was expected to succeed the 79-year-old Blatter, who said he would step down once his replacement was chosen.
Blatter, as the Associated Press reported, was also fined about $50,000; Platini was fined about $80,000.
Even as Blatter reportedly suffered a “small emotional breakdown” last month and appeared before the FIFA committee wearing bandages, some saw his comeuppance as just deserts.
“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,” the Guardian wrote. “To them Blatter was the Machiavellian master of power politics at Fifa.”
The former FIFA head had expected a different result.
“Blatter looks forward to a decision in his favor, because the evidence requires it,” Blatter’s lawyer, Richard Cullen, said in a statement after the hearing, as the AP noted. “The evidence demonstrates that President Blatter behaved properly and certainly did not violate FIFA’s Code of Ethics. This investigation should be closed and the suspension lifted.”
Blatter reportedly plans on appealing. Plantini was not immediately available for comment; Blatter was expected to appear at a press conference early Monday.
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