CAS to rule on Blatter case on Monday

Sepp Blatter will discover if his appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport against a FIFA-imposed sanction was successful on Monday.

FIFA banned its former president for six years on allegations of corruption, prompting the Swiss to take his case to the highest sporting authority in a bid to have it overturned.

Blatter and his UEFA counterpart Michel Platini were suspended from all football-related activity by FIFA in December 2015 when the adjudicatory chamber of its Ethics Committee ruled a payment of two million Swiss francs, authorised by the Swiss to the former France captain, constituted multiple infringements of the FIFA Code of Ethics.

The FIFA Appeal Committee upheld the Ethics Committee’s findings, although it reduced the initial eight-year suspensions to six in light of “strong mitigating factors” – namely Blatter and Platini’s long history of service in football administration.

CAS heard Platini’s appeal in May, when the body further reduced the Frenchman’s ban to four years and changed his fine from CHF 80,000 to CHF 60,000, but maintained he was right to be punished, taking into account “the absence of any repentance” and the impact on FIFA’s reputation.

Whatever the outcome of his own hearing – the verdict will be delivered on Monday at 1500 CET – Blatter has insisted he will not take the matter further.

He told reporters at his CAS hearing in August: “I will accept the verdict.

“I do hope it will be positive for me, but we are footballers. We learn to win but also we learn to lose.”

Blatter was succeeded by former UEFA general secretary Gianni Infantino as FIFA president in February, following a tenure spanning more than 17 years.