Chronicle Editor
LONDON (The Mirror) — Sepp Blatter and Michel Platini have been found not guilty of fraud at Switzerland’s Federal Court following a two-week trial centred on a £1,6m payment made to the latter in 2011.
Blatter, who led Fifa for 17 years, was cleared of fraud by the Federal Criminal Court in the southern city of Bellinzona.
Platini, a former France national team captain and manager, was also acquitted of fraud.
The two, once among the most powerful figures in global football, had denied the charges against them.
The former heads of Fifa and Uefa learnt of their fate via a verdict published yesterday by the three judges who presided over last month’s trial. Despite being cleared, Blatter (86) remains banned from football until 2028 for a different punishment in 2021.
Platini (67) has served his ban.
The Swiss Office of the Attorney General (OAG) had accused Blatter and Platini of “fraud, in the alternative of misappropriation, in the further alternative of criminal mismanagement as well as of forgery of a document.”
During the trial Blatter described a £1,6m cash transfer made to Platini as a “gentleman’s agreement” for the work the former France midfielder had carried out as an advisor to the Fifa president between 1998 and 2002.
Platini asked to be paid one million francs (£816 000) per year but Blatter said that the global governing body could not afford that salary.
Instead the three-times Ballon d’Or winner signed a contract for 300 000 francs a year and, according to Blatter, they had a verbal agreement to pay the rest of the money at a later date. His advisory role ended in 2002.
There was no mention of an additional payment in the signed contract.
“I knew when we started with Michel Platini that (300 000) is not the total, and we would look at it later,” Blatter said when giving evidence, adding that they shook hands on a later payment.
“It was an agreement between two sportsmen.
I found nothing wrong with that.”
Platini told the court: “I trusted the president, and knew he would pay me one day.”
The 66-year-old said that he believed the investigation into the payment arose because Fifa were determined to ensure he could not replace Blatter.
“What Fifa did to me was scandalous,” he told the judges.
“And the goal was that I didn’t become president of Fifa.”
The payment to Platini for consultancy services in Blatter’s first term as president, from 1998 to 2002, was authorised by Blatter in January 2011 but ended up finishing both men’s careers in football.
Swiss prosecutors had told the court in Bellinzona that it “was made without a legal basis” and “unlawfully enriched Platini” but the judge in their trial found them not guilty.
Platini will now get back his CHF 2m.
The Fifa ethics committee had banned them from football and removed them from office, and Blatter and Platini took their cases unsuccessfully to the Fifa appeals committee and later in separate appeals to the court of arbitration for sport.
Afterwards Platini pledged he would be going after unspecified “culprits” who led to the case against him.
“I wanted to express my happiness for all my loved ones that justice has finally been done after seven years of lies and manipulation,” he said.
“The truth has come to light during this trial and I deeply thank the judges of the tribunal for the independence of their decision.
“I kept saying it — my fight is a fight against injustice.
I won a first game.
In this case, there are culprits who did not appear during this trial.
Let them count on me, we will meet again because I will not give up and I will go all the way in my quest for truth.”
Blatter also made a short statement in which he said: “I’m not speaking about Fifa, I’m not speaking about corruption, I’m speaking about me.
I have done nothing wrong. I am clean in my conscience, I am clean in my spirit.”
A statement from Fifa said: “Fifa takes note of the verdict of the court regarding the case opened by the OAG (office of the attorney general) and will await the full reasoned judgement before commenting further.”
Online Reporter