FIFA's electoral committee will not carry out an integrity check on Michel Platini until after the disciplinary process surrounding a £1.3million payment to him has been completed.
An announcement on integrity checks for six out of the seven FIFA presidential hopefuls will be made by the end of the week - but not on Platini, who is under a provisional 90-day ban from FIFA's ethics committee pending a disciplinary hearing.
The £1.3million payment was made by FIFA to Platini in 2011 - the Frenchman says for work carried out for outgoing president Sepp Blatter more than nine years previously.
It is understood an integrity check on Platini will only be carried out if he is cleared of any wrongdoing meaning he is able to run for the presidency.
Another presidential candidate, Asian football confederation chief Shaikh Salman, has had complaints about his candidature lodged by human rights groups with FIFA's ethics and electoral committees. The groups claim he was involved in abuses of pro-democracy campaigners in Bahrain in 2011 - he has strongly denied any involvement.
Meanwhile, Germany's most senior figure in football is under investigation for alleged tax offences surrounding a secret payment to FIFA connected to the 2006 World Cup.
Officials from the prosecutor's office and tax police on Tuesday raided the headquarters of the German FA (DFB) in Frankfurt and the homes of association president Wolfgang Niersbach, a member of the FIFA and UEFA executive committees, and his predecessor Theo Zwanziger.
The investigation intensifies the pressure on Niersbach who had been seen as a likely future UEFA president. It centres on a 6.7million euro (£4.6million) payment made to FIFA in 2005 by the Germany 2006 World Cup organising committee. An internal audit has failed to find any trace of the 6.7million euro in the DFB's tax documents but it has been claimed it was used as a slush fund to buy FIFA votes.
Documents and hard drives were seized from the DFB's headquarters and Frankfurt's senior public prosecutor Nadja Niesen said in a statement: "Fifty officials from the Frankfurt tax investigators as well as the prosecuting authorities carried out searches of the offices of the DFB as well as the homes of suspects.
"Prosecutors in Frankfurt have started an investigation on suspicion of serious tax evasion connected to the awarding of the 2006 World Cup and the transfer of 6.7million euros from the DFB to FIFA."
Source: PA
