Michael Platini appeals 90-day ban

Michel Platini has appealed against a ban of 90 days imposed on him over an ongoing corruption probe while Fifa gears up for a crucial meeting over its fraud crisis. The news comes a day after Fifa President Sepp Blatter also appealed against a simliar 90-day ban from all football-related activities over a Swiss criminal inquiry.

Sepp Blatter and Michel Platini in June 2015 AFP

The bans on Blatter and Platini, the two most powerful men in world football, were announced by Fifa on Thursday.

The 60-year-old Platini, a front-runner to succeed Blatter as chief of football's scandal-tainted world governing body, denies any wrongdoing in taking a 2-million-dollar (1.76-million-euro) payment from Fifa in 2011.

Much now hangs on a meeting of Fifa's ruling executive committee on 20 October.

The fate of the election to replace Blatter, set for for 26 February, may depend on that summit, with some senior Fifa figures suggested the committee could debate postponing the vote.

Interim Fifa president Issa Hayatou, who on Friday insisted ongoing health problems would not stop him doing the high-pressure job, is rushing from his native Cameroon to take the reins at Fifa headquarters and is expected in Zurich on Tuesday.

The dramatic suspension of Blatter and Platini along with Fifa general secretary Jerome Valcke was the latest blow to an organisation reeling from months of scandal.

The crisis has been building since May, when US authorities announced charges against 14 officials and sports marketing executives over bribery allegations amounting to more than 120 million euros.

The suspensions handed out on Thursday can be renewed for another 45 days when they run out in January, which would take the exclusion until just before the Fifa election.

Should either Blatter or Platini see their appeal rejected, they would still have the right to take their cases before the final-instance Court of Arbritation for Sport (CAS), based in Lausanne.