Platini to appear at sport tribunal on April 29

Michel Platini will appear before the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) on April 29 to mount an appeal against his six-year FIFA ban for ethics violations, multiple sources told AFP on Friday.

Platini, the suspended head of European football confederation UEFA, filed an appeal with the Lausanne-based tribunal on March 2, seeking to overturn his conviction by FIFA’s ethics judges.

He has been sanctioned over an infamous 2.0 million Swiss franc ($2.0 million, 1.8 million euro) payment he received in 2011 from then-FIFA president Sepp Blatter.

FIFA’s ethics committee in December banned both men from all football activities for eight years. The suspensions were cut to six years in February.

Both men insist they did nothing wrong and that the payment was part of a legitimate oral contract tied to consulting work that Platini did for FIFA between 1999 and 2002.

Blatter, who has also filed a CAS appeal, was replaced as FIFA’s president in February by Gianni Infantino.

UEFA has said it will not replace Platini until all his appeals are exhausted, so if the former French star is successful at CAS he could reclaim his job in time preside over the France-hosted Euro 2016 tournament, which opens on June 10.