Michel Platini has been given permission to address European football’s governing body Uefa when it meets this week – despite the former president being banned from all football activity.<\/p>\n
Frenchman Platini, 61, was head of Uefa until his ban for breaching ethics rules over a \u00a31.3m “disloyal payment”.<\/p>\n
Uefa is meeting to select the former France midfielder’s successor.<\/p>\n
It asked Fifa for permission for its ex-leader to attend the gathering.<\/p>\n
“The Fifa ethics committee has informed Uefa that Michel Platini will be allowed to address the 12th Extraordinary Uefa Congress in Athens on 14 September,” it said in a statement.<\/p>\n
“A request for Mr Platini’s attendance had been recently made by Uefa and we welcome this decision,” it added.<\/p>\n
Why is Platini banned from football?<\/p>\n
The ethics committee of world governing body Fifa handed down an initial eight-year ban for Platini and Fifa’s then-president Sepp Blatter last year.<\/p>\n
It related to a payment of 2m Swiss Francs Blatter made to the Frenchman in 2011.<\/p>\n
The two have always denied wrongdoing and said the payment was made for consultancy work Platini had carried out for Blatter between 1998 and 2002, and that they had a “gentleman’s agreement” on when the balance was settled.<\/p>\n
But the ethics committee felt the pair had demonstrated an “abusive execution” of their positions.<\/p>\n
Charges included conflict of interest, false accounting and non-co-operation, with investigators submitting a file of more than 50 pages.<\/p>\n
The bans were later reduced to six years on appeal to Fifa, then four years in a further appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport.<\/p>\n
The issue is still under investigation by Swiss prosecutors.
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\nBy: BBC<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Michel Platini has been given permission to address European football’s governing body Uefa when it meets this week – despite the former president being banned from all football activity. Frenchman Platini, 61, was head of Uefa until his ban for breaching ethics rules over a \u00a31.3m “disloyal payment”. Uefa is meeting to select the former […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":247622,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[142],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\n