Sunday 6 December 2015 14:49, UK
Michel Platini hopes a 23-page memo published by a French newspaper on Sunday will help clear him of corruption charges.
Platini is serving a 90-day suspension over a £1.35m payment he received in 2011 for work completed between 1998 and 2002 from FIFA president Sepp Blatter, who is also suspended, with FIFA's ethics committee recommending he receive a life ban from football.
Platini's lawyer Thibaud d'Ales described FIFA's life ban demand as a "scandal" and "excessive" and Le Journal du Dimanche has published a memo which it says was presented to UEFA executive committee members in November 1998 and recorded the fact that Platini was being paid 1m Swiss francs a year for work he was doing for FIFA.
The newspaper said the memo was presented at a meeting in Stockholm, chaired by then UEFA president Lennart Johansson.
Thomas Clay, one of Platini's lawyers, said: "From the moment that we have proof of an agreement between FIFA and Mr Platini, and of knowledge of this agreement by officials of UEFA, then this [ethics committee] inquiry falls down.
"For us, it's very important evidence that Mr Platini has always been telling the truth.
"It shows that the contract did not have any sort of secret character and that many people, including those in UEFA and FIFA, have known about it since 1998."
Platini insists everything about the payment - which was made three months before a FIFA presidential election in which Platini opted not to challenge Blatter - was properly handled.
FIFA will hold an election on February 26 to find a replacement for Blatter and while Platini, who has registered as a candidate, cannot run while he is banned, he could take part if he is cleared in time.
