Former Football Association chairman David Bernstein is not entirely satisfied by the manner in which FIFA president Sepp Blatter and his UEFA counterpart Michel Platini have received eight-year football bans, describing the disciplinary process as similar to a kangaroo court .
Blatter and Platini have announced their intention to contest the ruling handed down by FIFA s Independent Ethics Committee on Monday, which came in the wake of a payment of two million Swiss francs by world football s governing body to Platini in February 2011, authorised by the Swiss.
Both men protested their innocence and claimed the payment was settled under a gentlemen s agreement , but that explanation did not satisfy the Ethics Committee, which found Blatter and Platini to have breached a number of articles contained within the FIFA Code of Ethics.
Bernstein, a long-time critic of Blatter, is keen to differentiate between the pair, despite their receipt of identical bans, and feels Platini s downfall has been to conduct himself in an amateurish and naive manner.
Asked whether the verdicts pleased him, the former Manchester City chairman told BBC Radio 5 Live: Not totally. There s a bit of a kangaroo court feel about some of this. Perhaps [that is] more relevant for Platini than Blatter because there s a distinction between the two.
Blatter has presided over a corrupt organisation for many, many years. The Swiss authorities and US authorities are after him. He ll get what he deserves.
Platini is very different. He s presided over a very straight organisation. UEFA is not mired by corruption.
Platini has got wrapped up with Blatter, he s got too close to him. What an amateurish way this payment has been handled. It makes you feel Platini has been naive.
Blatter offered a sprawling response to news of his ban at a press conference in Zurich soon after the ruling was made public.
Bernstein felt he was watching a familiar bullish front from the 79-year-old, whose race in football he believes is run.
He knows all the tricks doesn t he, Bernstein added.
He s a real performer and a real fighter, but at the end of the day he s either one of the world s greatest cynics or he s in some sort of denial. Perhaps a bit of both.
As always a master of confusion…he throws so many things into it, some of them may be partly valid, I don t know, but it s quite a performance.
He s a drowning man really, there s no coming back from this. He will fight, but he is doomed. He is yesterday s man.
