Platini vows to tell ‘truth’ at ban appeal

FIFA vice-president Michel Platini vowed to tell “nothing but the truth” before appearing at the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) in a bid to halt a 90-day suspension by football’s world body. The appeal is part of a campaign by the 60-year-old Frenchman to get back into the election for a new leader of scandal-tainted FIFA to be held on February 26.

Platini appeared before the CAS tribunal in Lausanne with his lawyers in a bid to get the suspension ordered in October provisionally lifted.

“I will say nothing more than I have already told you: the truth, all the truth and nothing but the truth,” Platini told reporters with a half smile before entering the tribunal.

He was accompanied by his Paris-based lawyers Thibaud d’Ales and Thomas Clay. FIFA was represented by Swiss lawyer Antonio Rigozzi.

Sport’s highest appeal court has promised a decision by Friday “at the latest.”

FIFA’s ethics committee suspended the boss of European confederation UEFA in October after he was linked to a criminal probe by Swiss prosecutors.

According to Platini’s lawyers, FIFA’s ethics watchdog wants the French football legend banned for life.

Platini has gone to CAS in a bid to get the suspension temporarily lifted. The Frenchman and FIFA president Sepp Blatter will appear before a FIFA appeal committee on December 16-18 for the main challenge against their 90-day suspensions.

Blatter is the target of a criminal mismanagement investigation by Swiss prosecutors. Platini has been questioned over a two million Swiss france ( 2 million) payment he received from FIFA in 2011 for work done a decade earlier.

Both men deny any wrongdoing, insisting there was an oral contract for the consultancy work on FIFA’s international calendar. Platini plans to use a 1998 UEFA document to back his case that he had a deal with FIFA.