Blatter and Platini banned by FIFA for eight years

FIFA President Sepp Blatter and UEFA boss Michel Platini, the two most powerful men in world soccer, were banned for eight years on Monday for ethics violations, leaving the world's most popular sport rudderless in a sea of corruption cases. The pair, who were also fined, had been suspended in October while an investigation was carried out into a 2 million Swiss franc ($2.02 million) payment that soccer's global governing body made to European boss Platini in 2011, with Blatter's approval, for work done 10 years earlier.
The decision means that Blatter's 17 years at the helm of world soccer, already tarnished by controversies over the awarding of several World Cup tournaments and a host of corruption cases against senior soccer officials, will end in disgrace.