New Swiss appeal against Blatter, Platini clearance set for next March
KEIR RADNEDGE REPORTS: A rerun appeal against the acquittal of Sepp Blatter and Michel Platini over the infamous ‘disloyal payment’ will be held in Muttenz, near Basel, next March.
Back in 2022 the former presidents of world football federation FIFA and European governing body UEFA were cleared at a court in Bellinzona only for prosecutors to appeal.
The original appeal hearing was scrapped after Platini complained to the Swiss Federal Court that senior magistrate Olivier Thormann had been the man who, in a previous role as prosecutor, had launched criminal proceedings agains the two men back in 2015.
Blatter had been the all-powerful president of world football federation FIFA for 17 years while Platini, one of his vice-presidents and also supremo for eight years of European governing body UEFA when they were placed under investigation and expelled from the game in September 2015.
At issue was the infamous “disloyal payment” of 2m Swiss francs paid by FIFA on the authorisation of Blatter to Platini in February 2011. Platini had worked for FIFA between 1998 and 2002 before launching a football political career of his own.
Both men denied charges of “suspicion of fraud, unfair management, breach of trust and forgery.” The prosecution had demanded suspended 20-month jail sentences.
Blatter had said the payment followed a “gentlemen’s agreement” between the pair when he employed Platini in 1998.
Platini worked as Blatter’s so-called ‘football counsellor’ until 2002 with an annual salary of 300,000 Swiss francs. This was the most FIFA could afford as it emerged from a financial crisis following the collapse of its marketing and media partners.
Blatter told the court that they had agreed the remainder of Platini’s one million per year salary would be settled at a more favourable financial time.
The payment emerged following a the FIFAGate investigation launched by the United States Department of Justice into bribery, fraud and money-laundering at FIFA in 2015, which triggered Blatter’s resignation.
Both officials were banned in 2015 from soccer for eight years over the payment, although their bans were later reduced. Platini, who also lost his job as UEFA president following the ban, claimed the case had been a deliberate attempt to block his pursuit of the FIFA presidency in 2015.
The Swiss office of the attorney-general undertook 25 separate investigations arising out of the FIFA financial and World Cup awards scandals.
The only other major Swiss case brought to court concerned a mystery payment to the German organising committee of the 2006 World Cup. A case against four former senior DFB officials collapsed because of time limitation regulations.
#####
