Sepp Blatter’s 17-year reign as the Fifa president is all but over after the ethics committee provisionally banned him for 90 days before the February election.
The Uefa president, Michel Platini, who was the favourite to succeed his mentor-turned-rival until he too become embroiled in corruption allegations, has been handed an identical sanction, as good as ending his Fifa presidential ambitions.
Both have been under extreme pressure since the Swiss attorney general, Michael Lauber, opened a criminal investigation into allegations Blatter mis-sold a World Cup TV rights contract to the disgraced former Fifa official Jack Warner in 2006 and made a “disloyal payment†of £1.3m to Platini in 2011. Blatter and Platini deny any wrongdoing.
In addition, the Fifa secretary general Jérôme Valcke, who has already been put on leave for a duration of 90 days, has now been banned for 90 days.
Fifa said in a statement: “The duration of the bans may be extended for an additional period not exceeding 45 days.â€
The former Fifa vice-president Chung Mong-joon, who had threatened to sue Blatter while claiming that he was being targeted on spurious grounds by the ethics committee to force him out of the race to succeed the president, has been banned for six years and fined £67,000. “The bans come into force immediately,†said Fifa.
The move represents the latest stage in the slow-motion collapse of the Fifa house of cards since US prosecutors sent the organisation spiralling into crisis in May, though the extent to which Fifa remains mired in chaos is reflected in the fact that Issa Hayatou, the senior Fifa vice-president, is next in line to take over from Blatter.