UEFA president Michel Platini will resign from the European football’s governing body after a sports arbitration court failed to overturn his six-year ban from football, instead only reducing it to four years.
The Court of Arbitration for Sport (Cas) panel reduced Platini’s ban by two years on Monday.
Following this judgement, the 60-year-old UEFA president said he would step down.
Platini and former FIFA president Sepp Blatter were last year found guilty of ethics breaches over a £1.3m “disloyal payment”.
The pair, who deny wrongdoing, had their original bans reduced from eight to six years by the Fifa appeals committee.
FIFA has since held its elections where Gianni Infantino was elected to take over the helm of the world football’s governing body.
Platini had taken his case to Cas seeking to get the ban overturned, but a three-man panel said it “was not convinced by the legitimacy of the payment”.
The two said the payment in 2011 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.
The matter is also being looked into by Swiss prosecutors.
After the ruling by Cas, Platini in a statement said: “I am resigning from my duties as Uefa president to pursue my battle in front of the Swiss courts to prove my innocence in this case.”
