April 28 – Sepp Blatter has reportedly been requested to attend Michel Platini’s eagerly awaited Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) appeal hearing on Friday as a witness in a last-ditch attempt by the Frenchman to clear his name.
Like Platini, Blatter is banned from football for six years (reduced from an initial eight) and has not yet had his own CAS hearing date set.
But he will get a taste of how it might go when he attends Platini’s hearing as the Frenchman contests being barred for accepting a ‘disloyal payment’ of SFr2 million in 2011 from FIFA with Blatter’s authority.
Platini’s lawyers had sought an early hearing because he is keen to clear his name and resume his UEFA presidency before the European Championship finals in his native France in June and July.
FIFA’s interim secretary general, Markus Kattner, is another potential witness, either in person or by video link. Kattner has been FIFA’s finance director for more than a decade and was reportedly directly involved in the payment to Platini in 2011 for consultancy work he carried out more than a decade earlier following a gentleman’s agreement with Blatter.
Both men deny any wrongdoing but the scandal effectively scuppered Platini’s prospects of succeeding Blatter as FIFA president. Although the pair have often failed to see to eye to eye in the past, they are ironically now relying on each other’s assistance to have their respective bans thrown out by sport’s highest court.
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