Fraud: Sepp Blatter, Platini Cleared by Swiss court After six-year Investigation

Fraud: Sepp Blatter, Platini Cleared by Swiss court After six-year Investigation

Former FIFA president Sepp Blatter and former UEFA president Michel Platini have been cleared of corruption charges by a Swiss court.

Blatter, who led FIFA for 17 years, was cleared of fraud by the Federal Criminal Court in the southern city of Bellinzona on Friday, July 8.

Platini, a former France national team captain and manager, was also acquitted of fraud. The two, once among the most powerful figures in global soccer, had denied the charges against them.

The said charges were levelled against them in November following an investigation launched by prosecutors in 2015 into a payment of two million Swiss francs (£1.6m) arranged by Blatter to be paid to Platini by FIFA in February 2011.

The case saw Sepp Blatter forced to end his 17-year reign as FIFA president in 2015 and dashed hopes of former France midfielder Platini of succeeding him. Platini was forced to quit UEFA in 2016.

Speaking outside the Swiss Federal Criminal Court on Friday morning, Blatter said: ‘I am not innocent in my life but in this case I am innocent!’, and he and Platini have now been acquitted.

After the verdict was delivered, Platini said he will be going after ‘culprits’ that led to the case being put against him.

‘In this case, there are culprits who did not appear during this trial,’ the 1984 Euros winner said.

‘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.’

Meanwhile, Sepp Blatter said: ‘I am not speaking about FIFA, I am not speaking about corruption, I am speaking about me.

‘That’s it, I have done nothing wrong. I am clean with my conscious, I am clean with my spirit, and I am clean with my anima (soul).’

Asked about his relationship with Platini, Sepp Blatter added: ‘It is a good relationship, we have been separated for years, but we are still good friends.’

Blatter, 86, had said the two-million franc payment followed a ‘gentlemen’s agreement’ between the pair when he asked Platini to be his technical advisor in 1998.

Platini, 67, worked as a consultant between 1998 and 2002 with an annual salary of 300,000 Swiss francs – the most FIFA could afford because of money troubles the organisation had at the time, Blatter has told the court.

The rest of Platini’s one million per year salary was to be settled at a later date, Blatter said.

Motives for the payment were unclear, although the two men met in 2010 and discussed the upcoming elections for the FIFA presidency in 2011.

When Sepp Blatter approved the payment, he was campaigning for re-election against Mohamed bin Hammam of Qatar. Platini, then president of UEFA, was seen as having sway with European members who could influence the vote.

The payment emerged following a huge investigation launched by the U.S. Department of Justice into bribery, fraud and money-laundering at FIFA in 2015, which triggered Blatter’s resignation.

Blatter and Platini claim they had a verbal deal in 1998 for the Frenchman to be paid one million Swiss francs (£818,000) to serve as advisor to Sepp Blatter, should he be elected as FIFA president.

That defence first failed with judges at the FIFA ethics committee, and later in separate appeals at the Court of Arbitration for Sport.

The FIFA ethics committee investigations banned them from football for eight years, reduced to six on appeal.

Platini, who also lost his job as UEFA president following the ban, said the affair was a deliberate attempt to thwart his attempt to become FIFA president in 2015.

Platini’s former general secretary at UEFA, Gianni Infantino, entered the FIFA race and won the election in 2016.