A Swiss prosecutor has demanded one-year and eight-month suspended prison sentences for former European Football Association (Wifa) president Michel Platini and Swiss Joseph Blatter, former president of the International Federation (FIFA), against the background of cheating FIFA to obtain unjustified compensation of two million Swiss francs (€1.8 million) for the former French star.
The Federal Criminal Court in Bellentsuna will give its ruling on July 8 in the career-ending case of the two men, which carries a penalty of up to five years in prison.
Prosecutor Thomas Hildebrand refused to demand severe sentences for the French (66 years) and Swiss (86 years) and requested that their sentences be accompanied by a suspended sentence and two years of probation.
For more than four and a half hours, the Attorney General tried to shake off the “verbal agreement” thesis between the two men about Platini’s work as a consultant to Blatter between 1998 and 2002.
Platini and Blatter signed a written agreement in August 1999 stating that FIFA would pay CHF 300,000 annually, confirming that they had agreed to pay CHF 700,000 more annually when FIFA’s finances allowed.
Platini, then President of the European Union, presented an invoice for 2 million Swiss francs (1.8 million euros) in early 2011, which Sepp Blatter signed and submitted to FIFA as back wages.
Hildebrand said that even if FIFA converted one million Swiss francs to platinum in 1999, he would have “over 21 million francs in cash” and his reserves reached 327 million in 2002.
He insisted that agreeing to such an amount without a written contract, without witnesses, and without having it recorded in the accounting department was “against business practice” as well as the customs of FIFA.
