Michel Platini , threatened with a lifetime ban by the domestic courts of FIFA, received on Friday a double whammy: the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) maintained its current provisional suspension and spokesman of the Ethics Committee of FIFA predicted for him a sentence of "several years".
The ability to run for the presidential elections of February 26 moments away by Platini, who was considered the favorite to succeed Joseph Blatter, resigned and currently provisionally suspended for a long time.
Platini did not hide his anger at the words of spokesman to the daily L'Equipe on Friday.
When asked by the French sports newspaper, which published the answers on their website, Andreas Bantel, spokesman for the Ethics Committee of FIFA, was confident that there will be a tough sanction against the president of UEFA, "Platini will surely be suspended several years".
"As for Blatter, no difference for him between several years and a lifetime ban," he added Bantel.
- "Anger and dismay" -
In a statement sent to AFP, Platini, UEFA president, and his lawyers expressed their "anger and dismay at the statements of Mr. Andreas Bantel", estimating that constitute "a flagrant violation of the presumption of innocence and demonstrate the political objective They pursued by the Ethics Committee of FIFA, for whom the debate and contradictory statement that she has set for December 18 are clearly not of any use. "