Since the start of their trial, Michel Platini and Sepp Blatter have chosen not to answer questions from the lawyer for the International Football Federation (FIFA), a civil party in this case. The wrath of the FIFA council fell on the defendants on Thursday, June 16, in the large courtroom of the Swiss Federal Criminal Court (TPF) in Bellinzona.
In the absence of the former French President of the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA), exempted from attending the debates, Me Catherine Hohl-Chirazi requested, during her argument, that 2.229 million Swiss francs “hijacked by the defendants” be returned to FIFA.
This amount has already been seized by the Public Ministry of the Confederation (MPC) on the account of Mr. Platini, referred to the TPF with Sepp Blatter for “suspicions of fraud, unfair management, breach of trust and forgery in the titles” in the case of the allegedly unfair payment of 2 million Swiss francs (1.9 million euros) made in February 2011 to the ex-player by the former FIFA president.
During his presentation of more than four hours, Me Hohl-Chirazi did not hold back his blows. She immediately assured that the “FIFA, as a legal person, does not accept that its ex-president and its former vice-president abused their position to take 2 million from it” whereas, according to her, the federation had, in 2011, “no debt to Mr. Platini. »
Like prosecutor Thomas Hildbrand, the day before, she dismantled the “invented thesis” by the defendants: that of the remainder of salaries by virtue of an alleged oral agreement that the latter would have sealed, in 1998, fixing the remuneration of the Frenchman at 1 million Swiss francs annually as adviser to Mr. Blatter.
Returning to the chronology of events, Me Hohl-Chirazi underlined that he “there is only one contract of Mr. Platini as adviser to President Blatter” : an agreement signed by the two men, on August 25, 1999, with a salary of 300,000 Swiss francs a year at stake.
“Mr. Platini wants his piece of the pie”
She recalled that FIFA had “paid all of Mr. Platini’s bills as of June 30, 2002” and that Mr. Blatter clarified to the Frenchman, in a letter of September 2002, that “the written agreement of 1999 is null and void”. According to Me Hohl-Chirazi, it was on February 24, 2010 that MM. Platini and Blatter would have started to ” to negotiate ” the amount of a payment made to the Frenchman for “personal and electoral purposes”.
For the FIFA lawyer, this payment was made in the context of the FIFA presidential election in June 2011, during which Mr Blatter was re-elected for a fourth term with the support of the UEFA. At the time, the Valaisan had promised Mr. Platini, eager to seek his succession, that it would be his “last term”.
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