FIFA vice-president Michel Platini vowed to tell "nothing but the truth" before appearing at the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) in a bid to halt a 90-day suspension by football's world body.
The appeal is part of a campaign by the 60-year-old Frenchman to get back into the election for a new leader of scandal-tainted FIFA to be held on February 26.
Platini appeared before the CAS tribunal in Lausanne with his lawyers in a bid to get the suspension ordered in October provisionally lifted.
"I will say nothing more than I have already told you: the truth, all the truth and nothing but the truth," Platini told reporters with a half smile before entering the tribunal.
He was accompanied by his Paris-based lawyers Thibaud d'Ales and Thomas Clay. FIFA was represented by Swiss lawyer Antonio Rigozzi.
Sport's highest appeal court has promised a decision by Friday "at the latest."
FIFA's ethics committee suspended the boss of European confederation UEFA in October after he was linked to a criminal probe by Swiss prosecutors.
According to Platini's lawyers, FIFA's ethics watchdog wants the French football legend banned for life.
Platini has gone to CAS in a bid to get the suspension temporarily lifted. The Frenchman and FIFA president Sepp Blatter will appear before a FIFA appeal committee on December 16-18 for the main challenge against their 90-day suspensions.
Blatter is the target of a criminal mismanagement investigation by Swiss prosecutors. Platini has been questioned over a two million Swiss france ($2 million) payment he received from FIFA in 2011 for work done a decade earlier.
Both men deny any wrongdoing, insisting there was an oral contract for the consultancy work on FIFA's international calendar.
Platini's decision to give up on his dream of becoming
FIFA president leaves five declared candidates.
They are Asian football head Sheikh Salman bin Ebrahim al-Khalifa of Bahrain, South African politician and tycoon Tokyo Sexwale, former FIFA vice president Prince Ali bin al Hussein of Jordan, UEFA general-secretary Gianni Infantino and Jerome Champagne, a former FIFA assistant general secretary from France.
Platini, a FIFA vice president, and 79-year-old Blatter were banned from all football-related acivities by FIFA's ethics committee on December 21.
Platini insisted there was nothing illegal in his oral contract he said was agreed with Blatter. The salary agreement was however never disclosed in FIFA documentation until the payment was made in 2011.
"I'm struggling to understand. Why? How did we get to this? I did some work, I asked to be paid, I sent an invoice, I was paid, I paid my taxes on that. That was in 2011," he told AFP when the ban was announced.
"There was a debt that was settled, full stop! Then, in 2015, the Swiss court wanted more information.
"Then it took off at FIFA and a lot of people at FIFA are happy that this issue happened.
"And here I am, suspended from all football-related activity for eight years."
Platini repeated his suspicions that the timing of the ban was a deliberate attempt to prevent him from standing in February's election.
"What was the FIFA ethics committee doing between 2011 when I was paid and 2015? Was it sleeping? Suddenly it wakes up," he scoffed.
"Ah yes, it wakes up in a FIFA election year when I'm a candidate. It's amazing!"
Later yesterday, UEFA said in a statement emailed to AFP that it "continues to support the right of Michel Platini to due process and the opportunity to clear his name".
