- Michel Platini, the former head of European football's governing body Uefa, has lost his appeal at the European Court of Human Rights against his four-year ban from the sport.
(REUTERS) – Michel Platini, the former head of European football’s governing body Uefa, has lost his appeal at the European Court of Human Rights against his four-year ban from the sport.
The Strasbourg-based court announced on Thursday (March 5) that a seven-member panel had dismissed the 64-year-old’s application against world football governing body Fifa’s 2015 and maintained that his human rights had not been violated.
“The court found in particular that, having regard to the seriousness of the misconduct, the senior position held by Mr Platini in football’s governing bodies and the need to restore the reputation of the sport and of Fifa, the sanction did not appear excessive or arbitrary,” the court said in a statement.
Platini was banned from football for eight years by Fifa along with the organisation’s former president Sepp Blatter. Both men denied wrongdoing.
The ban was over a payment of 2 million Swiss francs (S$2.91 million) made to the Frenchman by Fifa in 2011 with Blatter’s approval, for work done a decade earlier.
Platini’s ban was reduced to four years on appeal by the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS).
