PARIS (AFP) - Michel Platini appears before the Court of Arbitration for Sport on Friday to appeal his six-year Fifa ban for ethics violations, with his future in football hanging on the outcome.

The stakes could not be higher for the suspended head of European football.

A favourable verdict and the 60-year-old will take his place in the stands at the Stade de France for the Euro 2016 opener between hosts France and Romania on June 10.

A negative verdict will mean the former Juventus star barred from entering the national stadium, his glittering career in the sport having come to an ignominious end.

"This is the last avenue of appeal," Platini's lawyer Thibaud D'Ales conceded.

The Frenchman has been sanctioned over an infamous two million Swiss franc (S$2.78 million) payment he received in 2011 from then-Fifa president Sepp Blatter.

Fifa's ethics committee in December banned both men from all football activities for eight years. The suspensions were cut to six years in February.

Both men insist they did nothing wrong and that the payment was part of a legitimate oral contract tied to consulting work that Platini did for Fifa between 1999 and 2002.

The affair has already cost Platini a shot at becoming head of world football as he was forced to pull out of the race to become Fifa president in an election won by his No. 2 at Uefa, Gianni Infantino.