FA pulls out all the stops for Rooney's Euro appeal

Capello to address Uefa panel today as four-man legal team try to reduce England striker's ban

England striker Wayne Rooney leaves the pitch after being shown a red card for kicking an opponent against Montenegro in October (Getty Images)

Wayne Rooney will have an early meeting with the Football Association's four-man legal team in Nyon this morning before attending an appeal hearing against his three-match England ban at Uefa's headquarters there. The FA expect the matter to be settled today with Uefa likely to announce their decision this afternoon.

Fabio Capello and Adrian Bevington, Club England's managing director, will also attend the hearing, with the England manager set to address the three-strong Uefa panel. Rooney will speak if the legal team judge it necessary as they seek to have his ban reduced and free the Manchester United striker to play in at least one of England's group games in next summer's European Championship. England's last match in Group D is against Ukraine in Donetsk on 19 June – it follows fixtures against France and Sweden.

Rooney was expected to arrive in Nyon on the north shore of Lake Geneva in the early hours following a three-hour drive last night from Basle where United were in Champions League action. Rooney has already been heavily involved in the process and the assembling of an appeal statement on his behalf. The Manchester United chief executive, David Gill, who is also a member of the FA board, and the club have given their full support to Rooney's international appeal.

The FA's legal team is led by Adam Lewis QC, an expert in sports, EU, competition and human rights laws. He has acted for the Rugby Football Union and UK Athletics and advises London 2012 on sports advocacy. Lewis represented Sheffield United in their successful action against West Ham United over the signing of Carlos Tevez in 2009 and also secured a significant result last year when he represented two Belarusian hammer throwers who had been stripped of medals won at the Beijing Olympics for doping offences. Lewis led the pair's appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport and successfully argued that the testing process was not reliable. The medals were returned.

A Swiss lawyer who specialises in local sports law, James Bonnington, the FA's in-house lawyer, and a representative of the FA's external lawyers from the firm of Charles Russell also flew to Nyon with Bevington and Capello last night. Part of the case they have assembled will be evidence from Miodrag Dzudovic, the Montenegrin defender who Rooney kicked causing the striker to be dismissed during England's final Euro 2012 qualifier in Podgorica in October. Dzudovic's evidence has been described as "quite supportive". The FA may decide to base their case around proportionality, arguing that a three-game ban in a tournament in which the winners will play six times in all – and those who fail to get out of the group stage just three – is overly punitive.

Whatever the outcome of the panel's deliberations there is no possibility of the ban being increased as Uefa will not look to make a cross appeal. The hearing is expected to start at 9.30am local time and last around an hour. Rooney will fly back to Manchester as soon as proceedings are complete while the rest of the FA team wait for the panel's judgement.

The FA expect to tie up their next TV rights deal with ITV before Christmas. ITV will show England's home games and the FA Cup until 2014. They are believed to be paying some 20 per cent less than the current deal of £65m per year in what has been described as a bare market. The BBC did not bid as they seek to make cuts of between 15 and 20 per cent from their sports budget. The FA will meet with ITV executives next week to finalise details.

The domestic shortfall will in large part be made up by a rise in the value of the FA's overseas rights, a market that continues to grow with England established as the biggest draw in the world when it come to TV deals. As international deals are all done in US dollars, the rise is partially due to a strengthening of the pound. The FA are set to earn an extra £13m a year when the new European, Asian and American contracts are finalised. The European tender closed two weeks ago and the Asian one ends in January. The FA are confident of bringing in around £48m a year from the new deals, up from the current figure of £35m. The growth markets are predicted to be the Americas, particularly South America with local broadcasters keen to expand their portfolios ahead of the 2014 World Cup and 2016 Olympics, and Asia, where Al Jazeera continue to grow rapidly.

Next week will also see the FA conduct interviews for the two independent directors whom the Government want in place before the start of next season as part of reforms. The shortlist is believed to be diverse and include a number of women. The aim is to have two names to put before the FA board at their next meeting on 22 December.

Prince plays a blinder with FA

Prince William's duties as president of the Football Association have so far involved getting shirty with Fifa, as in let us wear poppies, glad-handing Fifa, as in let England have the World Cup, and berating Sepp Blatter, as in joining a long queue to suggest his unopposed election as president was not a good idea. Now he has taken his commitment to a new level by sitting through a board meeting, a two-hour affair last week in which he was said to have shown unwavering interest.