Swiss court confirmed Platini 4-year ban

Switzerland's supreme court has dismissed an appeal by former FIFA vice president Michel Platini against his four-year ban for financial wrongdoing. The Swiss Federal Tribunal says the ban imposed by the Court of Arbitration for Sport "does not appear to be manifestly excessive."

Platini held little hope of gaining a victory from the Swiss court, according to a statement from the former UEFA president's lawyers in Paris.

"Michel Platini reserves his rights to continue his fight with other judicial bodies," the statement said, without specifying which courts this could mean.

He was initially hit with an eight-year ban by the Fifa Ethics Committee in late 2015, at the height of an unprecedented scandal that upended world football, but his suspension was later cut to six years upon appeal.

Platini appealed his suspension to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS), which in May 2016 chopped another two years off the suspension, and he took the case further to the Federal Court in Lausanne.

Platini, who has denied wrongdoing, was banned from soccer along with Sepp Blatter, the former FIFA head who approved the payment. The federal court is the fourth to find Platini was not entitled to $2 million in backdated salary in 2011 for working as Sepp Blatter's presidential adviser from 1998-2002.

The ban removed Platini from the UEFA presidency and the February 2016 FIFA election race to succeed Blatter. n theory, Platini can therefore resume football-linked activities in 2019.