FA's ethics tribunal banned Sepp Blatter and Michel Platini for eight years on Monday, saying they had abused their positions over a suspect $2 million payment. According to a report in The Times Of India, in a verdict that heightened the crisis in football's scandal-plagued world body, the court strongly criticised the FIFA president and vice president, saying there was "no legal basis" for the payment that Blatter authorised for Platini in 2011.

While full-blown corruption charges were dropped, both men angrily vowed to fight the bans. Blatter said he felt he was being used as a "punching ball" and declared: "I will fight to the end."

The ban, which starts immediately, promises to end 79-year-old Blatter's four decades with FIFA in disgrace. It is also a devastating blow to Platini's hopes of taking over as head of FIFA in an election on February 26. Blatter, FIFA's president since 1998, was fined 50,000 Swiss francs ($50,000/46,300) while Platini, the head of UEFA, Europe's governing body, was fined 80,000 Swiss francs.

FIFA suspended the pair and launched an inquiry in October after Swiss prosecutors accused Blatter of criminal mismanagement over the two million Swiss franc ($2 million/1.8 million euro) payment that was caught with special software.

According to a report in The Asian Age, Sepp Blatter and Michel Platini remained defiant on Monday despite being banned from football by Fifa. Both men vowed to keep fighting in their own defence after being suspended for eight years over an ethics violation.

Platini, head of European federation Uefa and a Fifa vice-president, said the Fifa decision was a “masquerade” intended to “sully” his name.

“Shortly after the verdict was announced, Blatter addressed the world media at the Sonnenberg conference centre in Zurich, which symbolically is the site of Fifa’s former headquarters. Unshaven and with a plaster bandage on his cheek, Blatter was flanked by his daughter Corinne, who has long been one of her father’s most outspoken defenders,” says the report.