OMNISPORT 

FIFA's appeal committee has partially confirmed the decisions taken by the organization's ethics committee against Sepp Blatter and Michel Platini but reduced their bans from football from eight to six years.

Blatter and Platini's appeals against infringements of general rules of conduct, loyalty, conflicts of interests and offering and accepting gifts and other benefits were rejected.

The appeal committee decided, however, that "strong mitigating factors" - such as the pair's service to FIFA and UEFA - were not taken into account when the original sanction was established.

Blatter and Platini will therefore have one year taken off their five-year bans for offering and accepting gifts and other benefits and another year taken off the three-year bans for the other breaches.

Appeals from the investigatory chamber for life bans from all football-related activity to be imposed were turned away as breaches of the FIFA regulations on bribery and corruption could not be established.

More to follow...