Fifa has rejected appeals by its president Sepp Blatter and Uefa president Michel Platini against their provisional bans from all football activity.
The decision is a further blow to Platini’s faint hopes of re-joining the race to succeed Blatter, although the Frenchman has already confirmed that he will appeal the suspension with the court of arbitration for sport. He has submitted his candidacy but Fifa’s ad-hoc electoral committee will not rule on his eligibility until he returns from his 90-day ban.
Meanwhile, it is understood that the Fifa ethics committee is on track to make a decision on the facts of the case before Christmas in any case, with both men facing the possibility of bans of up to seven years.
The pair had appealed in the wake of the decision by Fifa’s ethics committee in September to ban them both for 90 days , with a possible 45 day extension, while investigations into an alleged “disloyal payment” continued.
Blatter was accused by the Swiss attorney general of making a £1.35m payment to Platini weeks before he was re-elected as Fifa president in 2011. Platini has argued that the payment was for work carried out when he worked for Blatter as a special adviser between 1998 and 2002 but that Blatter told him at the time that Fifa could not afford to pay and he did not want to upset its wage structure.