Michel Platini will find out Friday morning if his 90-day FIFA ban will be temporarily lifted by the Court of Arbitration for Sport. CAS said Thursday it will publish its ruling at 10 a.m. Swiss time (0900 GMT). Platini asked a CAS panel at a preliminary hearing on Tuesday to be allowed to work. The UEFA president is currently banned and his FIFA presidential candidacy is on hold. In Paris, the UEFA executive committee will meet on Friday morning and the 2016 European Championship draw is set for Saturday evening. The CAS panel could lift the ban without taking a position on Platini's guilt or innocence. Interim bans can be overturned because the judges feel it is unfair and out of proportion. Platini and FIFA President Sepp Blatter face life bans at FIFA ethics committee hearings in Zurich next week. The case centers on Blatter's approval of $2 million of FIFA money that Platini got in 2011 as backdated salary. Platini was a presidential adviser to Blatter from 1998-2002. Both deny wrongdoing, but acknowledge there was only a verbal agreement which they say is valid under Swiss law. Still, FIFA was not required to pay Platini when more than five years elapsed since the work was completed. The timing of the payment, which was not disclosed to the FIFA and UEFA executive committees, also raised suspicion. Platini was paid in February 2011, three months before a FIFA presidential election which Blatter won. Both men face sanctions for a range of potential FIFA Code of Ethics violations, including bribery, conflicts of interest and false accounting. Blatter's hearing is next Thursday with FIFA ethics judge Joachim Eckert and Platini follows at FIFA headquarters the next day. Verdicts are expected within days, before Christmas. Any sanctions can also be challenged at FIFA and CAS with appeals likely to be done before the FIFA presidential election on Feb. 26. (For more sports news andupdates, followAhramOnlineSportson Twitter at@AO_Sportsand onFacebookatAhramOnlineSports.) http://english.ahram.org.eg/News/173104.aspx
