The former president of world football’s governing body is unable to testify in court on the first day of the trial. The criminal case currently being negotiated is quite bizarre.
Despite health problems, Joseph Blatter (right) looks confident as he leaves the courthouse with his defense attorney Lorenz Erni.
Joseph Blatter is 86 years old. For the past few months, the long-serving president of world football’s governing body (Fifa) has been struggling with health problems. Joseph Blatter is capable of negotiating for four and a half hours a day, as a medical certificate confirms. The main hearing against Blatter and his former partner Michel Platini began on Wednesday before the Federal Criminal Court in Bellinzona. Four hours later, when the head of the court, Joséphine Contu Albrizio, finally wanted to start questioning Blatter, his defense attorney Lorenz Erni intervened: his client did not feel well.
Blatter confirmed he felt unable to answer the court’s questions. He has chest pains and can hardly breathe. The two suspects, Blatter and Platini, have answered the questions that are raised several times in recent years – before the Fifa Ethics Committee, before the Sports Court TAS in Lausanne and most recently before the Office of the Attorney General. It is always about whether a fee of 2 million francs that Blatter paid to Platini in February 2011 was legal. The question arises in particular because Fifa had already paid Platini’s consulting work for the years from 1998 to 2002 with a total of 1.2 million francs.
Blatter has to answer a simple question
It is understandable that, despite the relatively simple questioning, one can easily get tangled up in the thicket of all the statements made by the two accused, but also by various witnesses in recent years. Your head should already be free to face this challenge.
It is planned that Blatter will now be questioned on Thursday morning. “Let’s hope I’ll be better then,” he agreed with the court president’s suggestion, without exuding too much confidence. During the first four hours of the hearing, the court dealt only with formal issues raised by the two defense attorneys.
The history of the charges against which Blatter is now facing trial is remarkable. Because it goes back to an ad that the Valais himself triggered. “Blatter files criminal charges,” headlined the NZZ on November 18, 2014. He did so on the recommendation of the then president of the ethics committee created by Blatter. This had reached its limits when investigating the machinations surrounding the awarding of the World Cup in Russia 2018 and Qatar 2022. Blatter followed the recommendation and filed a criminal complaint with the federal prosecutor’s office – with the intention of uncovering possible bribes paid by Russia or Qatar.
Convinced of his innocence: The accused Joseph Blatter answers reporters’ questions in front of the courthouse.
In a written statement he stated at the time: “If we had something to hide, we would be careful not to involve the public prosecutor’s office.” It is ironic that Blatter is one of the few people caught in the criminal proceedings he initiated. The fact that the federal prosecutor came across the controversial fee payment at all is called “bycatch” in the jargon.
Because as one of the first investigative measures, the federal prosecutor had the bank accounts of all Fifa executive members who were entitled to vote in the elections in Russia and Qatar checked. They were just over twenty members of the Executive Committee. During this check of the cash flows, one payment stood out – the 2 million Swiss francs that FIFA transferred to a UBS account in Nyon in February 2011.
An insider’s tip puts you on the right track
As a next step, the federal prosecutor wanted to know what this payment was all about, which was only found at Platini but not at the other Fifa executive members. In order to get on the right track, it probably needed the tip of an insider. There were some who knew about the disputed fee payment, both at Uefa in Nyon and at Fifa in Zürichberg.
Anyone who wants to go further can ask themselves whether the whistleblower – who has not yet been revealed – had any specific intentions in doing so. This is the question asked by those who accuse Gianni Infantino of paving the way for his election as Fifa president. Both Infantino and the “new” Fifa firmly reject this claim. Fifa’s legal representative, Geneva lawyer Catherine Hohl-Chirazi, repeatedly described this scenario as a conspiracy theory in court on Wednesday.
Given his position at the time, Olivier Thormann should know. As the leading federal prosecutor, Thormann was responsible for all Fifa proceedings at the time. In this capacity, he also conducted the first surveys of Blatter and Platini in September 2015.
Thormann is summoned by the court as a witness on Thursday, following the questioning of Blatter. Two things are explosive about it: Thormann has now been appointed to the appeals chamber of the Federal Criminal Court; and recently it became known that the two extraordinary federal prosecutors who are conducting the proceedings surrounding the informal meetings between Michael Lauber and Gianni Infantino have also extended the investigation to Thormann. Thormann attended at least one of the three meetings in question. Like Lauber and Infantino, he is said to have the status of an accused and to have brought in a lawyer for the forthcoming questioning.
The case is not lacking in remarkable constellations. In any case, the balance of the federal prosecutor’s office is raven black. When she started at the end of 2014 to uncover possible bribe payments in connection with the World Cup awards to Russia and Qatar, almost only the complainant at the time got stuck in the network of investigators. If the payment of 2 million Swiss francs is said to have been the only event in those years that took place outside of the law, FIFA soon deserves a halo.