Ex-FIFA president Sepp Blatter loses appeal against 6-year ban

Former FIFA president Sepp Blatter on Monday lost his appeal against a six-year ban by the world soccer body.

Blatter said in a statement that it is “difficult” to accept the ruling by the Court of Arbitration for Sport, but that “the way the case progressed, no other verdict could be expected.”

Blatter, who was banned for approving a $2-million payment to former FIFA vice president Michel Platini in 2011, said he will accept the decision. He could have appealed the ruling to Switzerland’s supreme court. It can annul verdicts if the legal process was abused.

“I have experienced much in my 41 years in FIFA. I mostly learned that you can win in sport, but you can also lose,” Blatter said. “Nevertheless I look back with gratitude to all the years, in which I was able to realize my ideals for football and serve FIFA.”

The verdict ends Blatter’s hopes of becoming honorary president of the soccer body he left in disgrace, and his legal problems are far from over.

He now faces a separate FIFA ethics investigation into suspected bribery linked to multimillion-dollar bonuses in top executives’ contracts. Swiss prosecutors have also opened criminal proceedings against Blatter in connection with the Platini payment and a sale of World Cup television rights.

Blatter denies any wrongdoing.

The Court of Arbitration for Sport was judging whether Blatter was guilty of a creating a conflict of interest and offering an unethical cash gift to Platini, who was a FIFA vice president in 2011.

Blatter and Platini said the $2 million was uncontracted salary based on a verbal agreement more than a decade earlier. From 1999 to 2002, the former French soccer great was Blatter’s advisor.

However, their explanation of a salary deal was doubted by FIFA ethics judges, and by the three-member Court of Arbitration for Sport panel on Monday.

“The payment amounted to an undue gift as it had no contractual basis,” the court said in a statement.

The FIFA ethics committee investigated after the payment emerged in September 2015 during a wider Swiss probe into alleged corruption linked to FIFA.

Blatter and Platini — whose FIFA presidential bid was stalled, then ended, by the case — were banned from soccer duty for eight years last December. The FIFA appeal committee cut two years from each man’s ban as “appropriate recognition” for their long service.

After a separate Court of Arbitration for Sport appeal hearing, Platini’s ban was reduced in May to four years.

ALSO

USC gets flowery treat for new year: Rose Bowl matchup with Penn State

College Football Playoff committee takes a deep dive, comes up with Huskies

Jeff Fisher isn’t going anywhere, signing two-year extension, and neither are Rams, who fall to 4-8