by John Revill
BELLINZONE, Switzerland (Reuters) – Former Fifa president Sepp Blatter and former UEFA president Michel Platini will appear from Wednesday before the Swiss Federal Criminal Court on suspicion of fraud which prompted their suspension. away from the governing bodies of world football.
The public prosecutor of the Confederation accuses 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 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 hopes of the former playmaker of the France team to succeed him .
This is one of 25 investigations by the Swiss Public Prosecutor’s Office (MPC) into corruption in football, a dozen of which are still ongoing.
After six years of investigation, Sepp Blatter, now 86, is accused by the MPC of fraud, breach of trust, unfair management and forgery in titles. Michel Platini, 66, is accused of fraud, breach of trust, participation in unfair management as an accomplice and forgery in securities.
The former bosses of Fifa and UEFA, once allies and now sworn enemies, deny any wrongdoing.
They assure that the payment of the two million Swiss francs corresponded to an oral contract relating to work as an adviser carried out by Michel Platini between 1998 and 2002.
The trial before the federal criminal court, which sits in Bellinzona, is scheduled until June 22. The verdict is expected on July 8. Both defendants face up to five years in prison.
AN “ADMINISTRATIVE PROBLEM”
“This case goes back to an event of 2011. It is an administrative problem, the payment of a salary which was due”, explains Sepp Blatter, according to whom the payment was declared as it should be and approved by the competent bodies of FIFA.
Michel Platini said he was “serene and confident” as the trial approached. “I am convinced that justice will be fully and definitively rendered to me after so many years of false accusations and slander. We will prove in court that I acted with the utmost honesty, that the payment of this arrears of salary to me was owed by Fifa and that it is perfectly legal,” he said.
The affair led FIFA’s Ethics Committee to suspend the two men from all football-related activity in 2015 for eight years, a period subsequently reduced.
The commission found that the transaction, which occurred as Sepp Blatter was seeking re-election as FIFA president, 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 MPC investigation, Michel Platini worked as an adviser between 1998 and 2002 in exchange for an annual salary of 300,000 Swiss francs approved contractually.
The payment was paid in full but the former French international later requested the additional payment of 2 million francs, still according to the public prosecutor.
The ex-Blues captain was forced out of UEFA in 2016 after unsuccessfully appealing against his suspension. He also lost an appeal to the European Court of Human Rights.
He was previously favorite to succeed Sepp Blatter, forced to resign in June 2015 in the face of the vast corruption scandal shaking FIFA.
It was ultimately former UEFA general secretary Gianni Infantino who took over the reins of world football’s governing body in 2016.
(Report John Revill, French version Jean-Stéphane Brosse)