FIFA bans Blatter, Platini from football for eight years
Sepp Blatter announces immediate appeal of ban and fine
Suspended FIFA President Sepp Blatter has announced that he will appeal against his eight-year ban from football earlier on Monday.
FIFA’s ethics committee banned its own president and European football UEFA’s President Michel Platini for eight years from all football-related activities.
Proceedings against the two men were primarily related to a payment of two million Swiss francs (around $2 million) transferred in Feb. 2011 from FIFA to Platini, the governing body said in a statement.
"We [will] go immediately once again to the FIFA appeal committee, we [will] go to the Court of Arbitration for Sport," Blatter told a press conference in Zurich.
Following this decision, Platini cannot be a candidate in the FIFA presidential election scheduled for Feb. 26 next year.
In addition, Blatter and Platini were fined 50,000 francs ($50,200) and 80,000 francs respectively ($80,332).
FIFA went into crisis in May when police swooped on Baur Au Lac hotel in Zurich to arrest senior members of football’s world governing body in a corruption investigation which has rocked the sport.
Blatter is also under investigation by Swiss authorities in a separate inquiry.
