Sepp Blatter and Michel Platini acquitted of fraud
Sepp Blatter and Michel Platini, recently two of the most powerful figures in world football, have been acquitted of fraud in a Swiss court.
The verdict on former UEFA president Mr Platini and ex-FIFA president Mr Blatter was handed down in Bellinzona on Friday.
Mr Platini, a former France national team captain who was president of European governing body UEFA, and Mr Blatter both faced sentences of up to five years for financial wrongdoing but actual jail time was always considered to be unlikely ahead of their 11-day trial.
Swiss prosecutor Thomas Hildbrand had requested a 20-month suspended sentence for each at the end of the trial at the Federal Criminal Court of Switzerland.
“Following the decision of the judges of the Court of Bellinzona, this morning, I wanted to express my happiness for all my loved ones that justice has finally been done after seven years of lies and manipulation,” Mr Platini said in a statement.
“The truth has come to light during this trial. I kept saying it: my fight is a fight against injustice. I won a first game. In this case, there are culprits who did not appear during this trial.
"Let them count on me, we will meet again. Because I will not give up and I will go all the way in my quest for truth.”
“My client’s full acquittal is the only correct outcome of these criminal proceedings,” Mr Platini’s lawyer Dominic Nellen said in a statement.
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The case was centred around a $2 million (£1.67 million) payment from FIFA to Mr Platini with Mr Blatter’s approval in 2011 for work done a decade earlier.
Mr Blatter announced his plan to resign early as president in June 2015, in the fallout from a sprawling American corruption investigation, which ended his 17-year reign.
A separate but cooperating case by Swiss prosecutors led to the Mr Platini payment being investigated.
The fallout ended Mr Platini’s campaign to succeed his former mentor and saw the former French soccer great removed as president of UEFA, the governing body of European football.
“Believe me, going from being a legend of world soccer to a devil is very difficult, especially when it comes to you in a totally unfair way,” Mr Platini added. Both Mr Blatter and Mr Platini have long denied wrongdoing and claim they had a verbal deal in 1998 for the Frenchman to get extra salary that FIFA could not pay at the time.
Mr Platini signed a contract in August 1999 to be paid 300,000 Swiss francs ($300,000) annually. That defence first failed with judges at the FIFA ethics committee, which banned them from soccer, and later in separate appeals at the Court of Arbitration for Sport.