LAUSANNE: Michel Platini will learn whether he can chair a meeting of UEFA’s executive committee shortly after it is due to start tomorrow morning writes KEIR RADNEDGE.

The French president of the European federation appealed on Tuesday to the Court of Arbitration for Sport against a 90-day ban imposed by the FIFA ethics committee pending an investigation into an allegation of misconduct in office.

CAS has confirmed that a decision on a “temporary lifting” of the suspension will be announced tomorrow morning.

UEFA’s exco meets in Paris tomorrow morning with the main item on the agenda being the staging of the European Championship finals draw in the French capital on Saturday. The meeting is due to start at 9am CET.

Platini was suspended in October over allegations that he accepted a ‘disloyal payment’ of SFr2m from FIFA, authorised by its president Sepp Blatter, in February 2011.

The payment issue had been discovered by Swiss police who placed Blatter under criminal investigation and assessed Platini at a status somewhere between witness and accused.

The payment, according to Platini, was for work he had undertaken for FIFA at Blatter’s behest between 1999 and 2002. Platini claimed he had not demanded payment at the time because of FIFA’s financial problems.

Blatter has said that the money had been due to Platini on the basis of a ‘verbal contract’. However, by the long-delayed time Platini claimed the payment, the five-year deadline for honouring the debt had elapsed.

The waters were further muddied last weekend when – with timing which was clearly not accidental – a French newspaper claimed to have seen a 1998 UEFA document referring to the payment agreement.

Both Blatter and Platini have denied wrongdoing and have been notified that the ethics committee will hear their final submission before passing judgment later next week.

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