LAUSANNE: Disgraced former FIFA president Sepp Blatter appeared before sport’s highest tribunal for his appeal hearing against a six-year ban from football on Thursday in a long-shot quest for redemption after his career ended in scandal, pledging to accept the verdict of the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS).

The 80-year-old, who headed football’s global governing body for 17 years until he resigned in June last year, was banned from all football-related activity last December along with the then European soccer boss, Michel Platini.

“My name wouldn’t be Sepp Blatter if I didn’t have faith, if I wasn’t optimistic,” he told reporters as he arrived for the hearing. “I will accept the verdict because, in football, we learn to win, this is easy, but we also learn to lose, but this is not good, I wouldn’t want to lose.”

The court’s verdict is expected within several weeks, and could be challenged in a further appeal to Switzerland’s supreme court.

Blatter denies wrongdoing in authorising a $2 million payment to former FIFA vice president Michel Platini in 2011. They claimed it was for backdated and uncontracted salary for work Platini did in advising Blatter from 1999 to 2002.

“I’m sure at the end...that the panel will understand that the payment made to Platini was really a debt that we [owed] him and this is a principle, if you have debts, you pay them,” Blatter said.

Platini, the former head of European football, was also sanctioned by FIFA over the funds.

The Frenchman lost his CAS appeal in a May verdict that likely diminishes Blatter’s hopes of victory.

Speaking to reporters before appearing to give evidence at the closed-door hearing, Platini said Blatter’s fate may already be sealed.

“I’m not sure if a decision hasn’t already been made,” he said, pledging to tell the truth about the infamous payment “for the umpteenth time.”

Both men, who have denied wrongdoing, were initially banned for eight years, later reduced to six by FIFA’s own appeals committee.

CAS rejected Platini’s appeal but reduced his ban to four years.

Blatter resigned in the midst of a FIFA corruption crisis only four days into his fifth term.

Several dozen football officials, including former FIFA executive committee members, and entities were indicted in the United States on corruption-related charges last year.

Switzerland, for its part, opened a criminal investigation into the decision to award the 2018 and 2022 World Cups to Russia and Qatar respectively.

Published in Dawn, August 26th, 2016