Sepp Blatter will challenge his six-year ban from football at the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) on August 25.

Blatter and UEFA president Michel Platini were originally handed eight-year bans by FIFA’s Ethics Committee in December for a £1.35million payment that the former FIFA boss made to his close ally in 2011.

Those bans were reduced to six years by a FIFA appeal panel in February, and Platini got a further two years knocked off his ban when he went to the Lausanne-based CAS in May.

But the CAS panel that heard Platini’s appeal backed the original FIFA decision that the payment, which was supposedly the balance Platini was owed for consultancy work he did between 1999-2002, was not legitimate.

Both men have strongly denied any wrongdoing, with Blatter saying the payment, which came shortly before Platini withdrew from the 2011 FIFA presidential race, was based on a “gentleman’s agreement”.

Platini, who was once the favourite to replace Blatter at FIFA, has already announced his intention to continue his fight to clear his name through the Swiss courts but he will be replaced as UEFA president in September.

The 80-year-old Blatter has kept a lower profile than the former French football star in recent months but his 18-year stint in charge of world football’s governing body is currently the subject of ongoing criminal investigations in Switzerland and the US.