Michel Platini has decided not to attend his hearing before FIFA’s ethics committee in Zurich, scheduled for Friday, his lawyers told AFP on Wednesday.
A statement from the legal representatives of the suspended UEFA president said he chose to boycott the hearing after “the verdict was already announced to the press by a spokesman…going against the presumption of innocence.”
Platini and FIFA president Sepp Blatter are currently serving 90-day bans from all footballing activities after Swiss prosecutors opened a criminal investigation looking partly into a $2 million payment Blatter authorised to Platini in 2011, reportedly for work done a decade earlier.
Both men risk being banned for life — Andreas Bantel, spokesman for FIFA’s ethics committee, was quoted by French sports daily L’Equipe as saying that Platini would be sidelined for “several years”.