Sepp Blatter and Mitchel Platini banned for 8 years

​FIFA president Sepp Blatter ​has been banned from all football-related activity for eight years, as has UEFA president Michel Platini. 

The bans come as a results of an ethics investigation into the pair, culminating in long hearings last week, over a payment of £1.35m made to the latter man by FIFA in 2011 - which the pair claimed came after a verbal agreement of payment for services rendered around a decade previously. 

Blatter, 79, is not expected to come back into administration after his ban ends due to his age, and the ruling may have significant consequences for Platini's future in football, even when his ban ends. 

The three-time European Footballer of the Year had been one of the favourites to take over from Blatter as FIFA president when the elections are held early next year before the charges of corruption, mismanagement, conflict of interest, false accounting and non-cooperation with the ethics committee were brought against him. 

German judge Hans-Joachim Eckert held hearings for the pair last week, at which investigators submitted a file of over 50 pages with what they claimed was evidence that the payment to Platini was one which should not have been made. 

An extract from a FIFA statement reads: 

"The adjudicatory chamber of the ethics committee chaired by Mr Hans Joachim Eckert has banned Mr Joseph S. Blatter, president of FIFA, for eight years and Mr Michel Platini, vice-president and member of the executive committee of FIFA and president of UEFA, for eight years from all football-related activities (administrative, sports or any other) on a national and international level. The bans come into force immediately.