Blatter, Platini deny wrongdoing in new fraud trial

MUTTENZ, Switzerland (AP):

FORMER FIFA president Sepp Blatter distanced himself from corruption in football when he went on trial yesterday for the second time alongside his one-time protégé Michel Platini.

Blatter and Platini returned to a federal courtroom nearly three years after they were acquitted at a first trial in July 2022 on charges of fraud, forgery and misappropriation of FIFA money. Swiss federal prosecutors appealed against those verdicts.

Blatter approved a FIFA payment of 2 million Swiss francs (now US$2.21 million) to France football great Platini in 2011 for backdated work as a presidential adviser a decade earlier.

“When you talk about falsehoods, lies and deceptions, that is not me,” the 88-year-old Blatter said in German to three judges hearing the case. “That didn’t exist in my whole life.”

Blatter and Platini deny wrongdoing in a case now in its 10th year that ended the political careers of arguably the two most influential men in world football who led FIFA and European governing body UEFA.

They have consistently claimed at five different judicial bodies – twice at FIFA, then the Court of Arbitration for Sport and now two Swiss federal criminal courts – they had a verbal “gentleman’s agreement” to one day settle the unpaid and non-contracted salary.

Federal prosecutors indictment in November 2021 said the payment “damaged FIFA’s assets and unlawfully enriched Platini”.

“There’s no corruption, no scam, nothing at all,” Platini said after five hours in court on the first of four scheduled days.

The acquittal came nearly seven years after the investigation was opened and removed them from office. It also ended Platini’s campaign as the favoured candidate to succeed Blatter, his former political mentor.

HOPEFUL

“I am hopeful,” Blatter told reporters in German entering the courthouse appearing frail one week before his 89th birthday.

He arrived at court 10 minutes after Platini – one-time allies at FIFA, turned rivals for control of football’s governing body until 2015, now co-accused for almost a decade.

Their second trial is due to end Thursday, with reserve days booked after Blatter’s 89th birthday next Monday. The verdict from three judges is scheduled for March 25.

Prosecutor Thomas Hildbrand, a veteran of FIFA investigations dating back more than two decades, has asked for sentences of 20 months, suspended for two years.

Blatter was president of FIFA and the most influential figure in world football for 17 years until being ousted early from office in 2015 amid fallout from a corruption crisis in the sport.

Platini was a storied former captain and coach of the France national team, then organising the 1998 World Cup in his home country, when he worked to help Blatter get elected to lead FIFA in Paris on the eve of the tournament.

Then he agreed to be a presidential adviser on an annual salary of 300,000 Swiss francs (now $332,000) through 2002. They claim there was a verbal deal to later get the balance of 1 million Swiss francs for each year that FIFA could not pay at the time.

Platini started asking for the money early in 2010 and the payment was finally made in February 2011. FIFA’s then-finance director Markus Kattner was the only witness called yesterday by Platini’s lawyers.

Details of the payment only emerged in the crisis that hit FIFA in May 2015 when US federal investigators unsealed a sweeping investigation of international football officials. Swiss authorities made early-morning arrests at hotels in Zurich before seizing FIFA financial and business records.