KEIR RADNEDGE REPORTS: Michel Platini has undergone further questioning in Switzerland over the notorious $2m “disloyal payment” from FIFA – and this time the hearing was witnessed by Sepp Blatter.

The payment was authorised in 2011 by ex-FIFA president Blatter who, like Platini, claimed the payment was a delayed installment of monies owed to the Frenchman for his work with the world federation a decade earlier.

Prosecutor Thomas Hildbrand is reportedly interested in whether the payment was a means for Blatter to persuade Platini, then the president of European federation UEFA, not to challenge him in 2011 for the FIFA presidency.

Both men have denied this.

Blatter, asked about his attendance at the hearing, told local media: “I have the right, it interests me. There is nothing that would give the idea that this money would have been intended to buy European votes. The prosecutor examined the merits of the oral agreement between us. That was the main topic today. ”

FIFA, a civil party in this case, was represented at the hearing by its lawyer, Me Catherine Hohl Chirazi.

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