by John Revill
BELLINZONE, Switzerland (Reuters) – Former Fifa president Sepp Blatter and former UEFA president Michel Platini were both acquitted of fraud charges against them by the criminal court on Friday Swiss Federal.
The public prosecutor of the Confederation accused the two men of having organized in 2011 the illicit payment of 2 million Swiss francs (1.92 million euros) to Michel Platini by Fifa (International Football Federation).
The two men, who were among the most powerful figures in world football, have always denied these accusations against them.
“I want to express my happiness for all my loved ones, justice has finally been served after seven years of lies and manipulation,” Michel Platini said in a statement.
“The truth has come to light during this trial,” he added. “I kept saying it: my fight is a fight against injustice. I won the first game.”
The case tarnished the end of Sepp Blatter’s long tenure at the helm of Fifa, boss of world football for seventeen years, and showered the former France team playmaker’s hopes of succeeding him .
Sepp Blatter, 86, said the payment of two million Swiss francs corresponded to work as a technical adviser carried out by Michel Platini between 1998 and 2002.
Fifa’s ethics committee, which in 2015 suspended the two men from all football-related activity for eight years, a sentence later reduced to six years, considered that the transaction lacked transparency and represented a conflict of interest .
Sepp Blatter was then campaigning against Qatari Mohamed ben Hammam. As president of UEFA, European football’s governing body, Michel Platini was seen as likely to influence the vote of some European delegates.
According to the investigation of the Swiss public prosecutor, Michel Platini worked as an adviser between 1998 and 2002 in exchange for an annual salary of 300,000 Swiss francs approved contractually.
Sepp Blatter said an oral agreement had been reached to pay an additional salary of one million francs a year to Michel Platini.
For judge Joséphine Contu Albrizio, it seems credible that a verbal agreement between the two men has been concluded.
It also seems unlikely that Michel Platini worked solely on the basis of a written contract for an equally derisory salary, said the judge before the court.
The fact that Michel Platini only requested payment of his remaining salary in 2010 also seems credible, according to the judge, because he did not need this sum immediately.
(Report John Revill, French version Myriam Rivet and Laetitia Volga, edited by Bertrand Boucey and Jean-Stéphane Brosse)