Former FIFA president Sepp Blatter and former UEFA president Michel Platini will appear in a Swiss court on Wednesday on charges of suspicious payment fraud in 2015.
Blatter, 86, and Platini, 66, will begin a two-week trial in the Swiss Federal Criminal Court in the southern city of Bellintsuna for suspected payment fraud that has kept them out of the global football scene since 2015. The two former officials, who are also being prosecuted for mismanagement, breach of trust and fraud, are accused of “illegally receiving into FIFA’s account a payment received in 2011 in the amount of two million Swiss francs (1.8 million euros)” for Platini. The court stated that Platini “submitted to FIFA in 2011 an alleged fictitious invoice for a still-existing (alleged) debt for his activities as an adviser to FIFA between 1998 and 2002”. The trial ends on the 22nd of this month, and the three judges deliver their decisions on July 8th. Both men face up to five years in prison or a fine.
“oral agreement”
Platini and Blatter were banned from any football-related activity at a time when the Frenchman seemed poised to take over from the Swiss at the top of the international organization. The allies became enemies due to Platini’s impatience to seize power, and the fall of Blatter came quickly due to a separate 2015 corruption scandal investigated by the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).
At the Pelintsuna trial, the defense and the prosecution agreed on one thing: Platini was appointed Blatter’s adviser between 1998 and 2002. In 1999, they signed a contract for an annual salary of 300,000 Swiss francs, “which Platini invoiced each time and paid in full to FIFA”, according to Swiss prosecutors. However, more than eight years after his advisory role ended, Platini “demanded two million francs,” the agency said in a statement.
Federal prosecutors allege that “with the involvement of Blatter, FIFA paid Platini the said amount in early 2011. Evidence collected by the Swiss prosecutor’s office confirmed that this payment to Platini was made without legal grounds. This payment damaged FIFA’s assets and unnecessarily hurt Platini. legal”. The two men insist that they verbally agreed from the outset on an annual salary of one million francs.
“This is an unpaid salary owed to FIFA under an oral contract and paid on the best legal terms. Nothing extra! I have acted, as I have throughout my life and career, with the utmost candor,” Platini said in a statement to AFP. As a civilian side, FIFA wants the money paid out in 2011 to be “returned to the sole purpose for which it was intended: football,” Mai Hall-Shirazi, the football organization’s lawyer, told AFP.
Blatter joined FIFA in 1975, became its general secretary in 1981 and president in 1998. The Swiss was forced to step down as president of the world body in 2015 and was suspended by FIFA for an 8-year period, later reduced to 6 years. for ethical violations. After it turned out that he allowed Platini to pay two million euros.
As for Platini, he is considered one of the greatest footballers in history. He won the Ballon d’Or three times in a row between 1983 and 1985 and led the European Union from January 2007 to December 2015. He appealed the decision to ban him for eight years before it was reduced to four.
