The Swiss Federal Prosecutor’s Office has decided to appeal the acquittal of former presidents of the International and European Football Associations Joseph Blatter and Frenchman Michel Platini in the case of fraud and forgery of documents, the national news agency ATS-Keystone reports. “.
After six years of investigation and a two-week trial, on the eighth of this month, a Swiss court acquitted Blatter and Platini for lack of sufficient evidence in a case of fraud and forgery that ruined their administrative careers in the world of football.
The criminal court in Plinzone denied prosecutors’ requests in mid-June to jail Blatter (aged 86) and Platini (aged 67) with a suspended sentence of one year and eight months on the grounds of fraud against the International Federation (FIFA) for obtaining Platini unfounded compensation of two million Swiss francs (€1.8 million) for consulting work for 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 verbally pay another CHF 700,000 annually when FIFA’s finances allowed.
Platini, the three-time European Footballer of the Year in the Eighties, who served as President of the European Union between 2007 and 2015 and was in contention for the presidency of FIFA, introduced a two million Swiss franc (€1.8 million) note in early 2011, which Blatter signed and submitted to FIFA. As an overdue salary balance, the prosecutor’s office considered it to be false.
While Blatter saw in front of the judges that the former Italian Juventus star “deserved a million,” Platini described the talks as not so official that he didn’t specify the currency “for me, and jokingly I said + pesetas, liras, rubles, Mark , you decide +”.
The two men who sought acquittal alleged political and judicial machinations aimed at removing them from power.
But prosecutors did not give up in their pursuit of the two men, and ATS-Keystone reported that on Friday, July 15, it expressed its intention to challenge Blatter and Platini’s acquittal.
Federal prosecutors must now wait for a written criminal court decision to file an appeal, a process that could take some time.
After the criminal court submits its written decision, the prosecutor’s office will review it and then decide whether to uphold or withdraw its appeal.
During the investigation and two weeks of hearings, the defense team tried to present the possibility of a possible behind-the-scenes role of another incumbent FIFA president, Gianni Infantino, who was Platini’s right-hand man in the European confederation Vifa. , and then unexpectedly was elected president of FIFA in early 2016. After a historic corruption scandal and the embezzlement of hundreds of millions of dollars to officials of the football organization.
Infantino has been prosecuted by the Swiss judicial authorities since 2020 in a separate procedure in connection with three secret meetings with a former Swiss prosecutor.
Blatter joined FIFA in 1975 and became general secretary in 1981 and then head of the world’s largest football organization starting in 1998. In 2015, he was forced to leave his post and suspended for eight years, which was reduced to six, for violating the rules. ethics.
As for Platini, who is considered one of the most outstanding players in the history of football, then, in turn, he was subjected to an eight-year suspension, which the Court of Arbitration for Sport reduced to four.
