Former FIFA president Sepp Blatter and ex-UEFA chief Michel Platini are charged with fraud and other offences by Swiss prosecutors after a six-year probe into controversial $2m payment
- Sepp Blatter and Michel Platini have been charged by the Swiss authorities
- It comes after a six-year investigation by prosecutors into a $2m payment
- The former football administrators now face a trial within months in Switzerland
- Both deny wrongdoing and cited a verbal deal they made over 20 years ago
Former FIFA president Sepp Blatter and former UEFA president Michel Platini have been charged with fraud and other offences by Swiss prosecutors on Tuesday after a six-year investigation into a controversial $2million (£1.4m) payment.
The 85-year-old Blatter and 65-year-old Platini now face a trial within months at federal criminal court in Bellinzona, Switzerland.
‘This payment damaged FIFA’s assets and unlawfully enriched Platini,’ Swiss federal prosecutors said in a statement.
The case from September 2015 ousted Blatter ahead of schedule as FIFA president and ended then-UEFA president Platini’s campaign to succeed his former mentor.
Swiss cases often take years to reach a conclusion.
The case centres on Platini’s written request to FIFA in January 2011 to be paid backdated additional salary for working as a presidential adviser in Blatter’s first term, from 1998 to 2002.
Former FIFA president Sepp Blatter (left) and former UEFA president Michel Platini (right) have been charged with fraud and other offences by Swiss prosecutors
The case from September 2015 ousted Blatter ahead of schedule as FIFA president
Blatter authorised FIFA to make the payment within weeks. He was preparing to campaign for re-election in a contest against Mohamed bin Hammam of Qatar, where Platini’s influence with European voters was a key factor.
Both Blatter and Platini have long denied wrongdoing and cited a verbal agreement they had made, now more than 20 years ago, for the money to be paid.
Blatter has been charged with fraud, mismanagement, misappropriation of FIFA funds and forgery of a document.
Platini has been charged with fraud, misappropriation, forgery and as an accomplice to Blatter’s alleged mismanagement.
Platini, a French football legend, was not placed under formal investigation until last year, and months later the more serious allegation of fraud was included against both men.
Prosecutors had opened criminal proceedings against Blatter in September 2015 ahead of a police raid at FIFA headquarters in Zurich on the day he and Platini attended a meeting of the football body’s executive committee.
Advertisement