Story highlights
Ethics committee declines to say what sanctions it is requesting
Both Blatter and Platini deny wrongdoing
The FIFA ethics investigatory committee announced Saturday that it was requesting sanctions against FIFA President Sepp Blatter and UEFA President Michel Platini – but it declined to say what sanctions it had recommended.
Although it has finished its investigation, the committee said in a statement “that for reasons linked to privacy rights and the presumption of innocence until proven guilty, the chamber will not publish details of the concluded reports and the requested sanctions against the two officials.”
In a separate statement, FIFA’s adjudicatory chamber said it had received the reports and would “decide in due course about whether to institute formal adjudicatory proceedings” against the pair.
Lawyers representing Blatter later told CNN by email that the 79-year-old “looks forward to having this matter decided impartially and based on the facts, and he is confident he will be vindicated when the facts are independently examined.”
Thibaud d’Ales, a lawyer representing Platini, said that the decision of the ethics committee ensured FIFA had “lost all credibility,” according to quotes carried by the AFP news agency.
“It is a troubling coincidence the day after our appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport against Michel Platini’s provisional suspension,” d’Ales said.
Platini risks seeing his hopes of succeeding Blatter as FIFA president permanently derailed by the drama unfolding at the top of world football’s governing body.
His candidacy is on hold until all proceedings against him are concluded and he can undergo an integrity check by FIFA’s electoral committee.
“It’s farcical,” d’Ales continued. “It would be laughable if we were not talking about the future of the biggest non-governmental institution in the world.”
A $2 million payment from Blatter to Platini
In August, Blatter and Platini were provisionally banned by the FIFA ethics committee. The sanctions were imposed amid a Swiss investigation into a payment made by FIFA to former France captain Platini in 2011.
Blatter is also believed to be under investigation by FIFA and the Swiss authorities over a 2005 TV rights deal between FIFA and Jack Warner, the former president of CONCACAF, the governing body of football in North and Central America and the Caribbean.
Both Blatter and Platini deny any wrongdoing and appealed their provisional bans, although these moves were rejected by the FIFA appeals committee earlier this week.
Platini has since stated he will go to the Court of Arbitration for Sport to in a bid to have his ban overturned.
