Platini hits out at FIFA investigators

Michel Platini launched a virulent assault on FIFA's ethics watchdog in a statement read out at the football world body's tribunal which is deciding whether he is guilty of corruption.
"I am already judged, I am already condemned," the 60 year-old suspended FIFA vice president and UEFA leader said in the statement which was released on Saturday after being read out by his lawyer at Friday's hearing in Zurich.

The tribunal is to release its verdict on Monday and FIFA's ethics investigators have called for Platini to face a life ban.

Platini however attacked an "anthology of indiscretions, rumours, confidences leaked to the press by anonymous and malevolent sources from within FIFA that you have done nothing to silence," in the statement to the judges.

The statement highlighted a media interview given by Domenico Scala, head of FIFA's audit committee, in October when he gave details of a two million Swiss franc ($2 million/1.8 million euro) payment approved by FIFA president Sepp Blatter to Platini in 2011.

The payment is the cause of the FIFA investigation and Scala highlighted how there was no contract and how the sum did not appear in FIFA accounts.
Blatter and Platini, both serving 90-day suspensions, deny any wrongdoing. But FIFA's ethics commission has called for a life ban for Platini.

Blatter, 79, who appeared before the tribunal on Thursday, also faces a long ban.

Platini said the case prepared by FIFA prosecutor Vanessa Allard is "loaded" and declared: "I no longer have any trust in FIFA's disciplinary bodies."

Neither Platini nor Blatter have revealed any of the details of their defence used to justify the payments, however.

FIFA's ethics commission would not comment on Platini's decision to release his statement.

A source close to FIFA's temporary leadership said "it is not the investigators job to be impartial. But neither is Mr Platini impartial".
Source: AFP