Sepp Blatter, Michel Platini acquitted again in trial of financial wrongdoing at FIFA
Sepp Blatter and Michel Platini won again in court Tuesday and now lead 2-0 in trial verdicts against Swiss federal prosecutors.
Once soccer's most powerful men, former FIFA president Blatter and former UEFA president Platini were acquitted for a second time in a case now in its 10th year on charges of fraud, forgery, mismanagement and misappropriation of more than $2 million of FIFA money in 2011.
Blatter, now aged 89, gave little reaction listening to the verdict of three cantonal (state) judges acting as a federal criminal appeals court. Sitting in the row in front of Platini, Blatter alternately tapped his fingers on his desk or held his left hand over his mouth.
Only when the 55-minute verdict statement was over did Blatter smile before reaching across to shake his lawyer's hand. Blatter then shared a long hug with his daughter, Corinne.
"You have seen my daughter was coming with tears because she believed in (her) father and I believed in myself," said Blatter, who spoke of a sword of Damocles being removed from over his head. "To wait such a long time affects the person and my family was very much affected."
Platini sat with his arms folded or rubbing his hands as he listened to a translator sitting beside him relating the court's verdict in German into his native French.
"This persecution by FIFA and some Swiss federal prosecutors for 10 years is now finished, is now totally finished," Platini said leaving the court, insisting his honor was restored. "So I'm very happy."
The attorney general's office in Switzerland had challenged a first acquittal in July 2022 and asked for sentences of 20 months, suspended for two years. The indictment alleged the payment "damaged FIFA's assets and unlawfully enriched Platini."
"Michel Platini must finally be left in peace in criminal matters," his lawyer Dominic Nellen said in a statement. "After two acquittals, even the Office of the Attorney General of Switzerland must realize that these criminal proceedings have definitively failed."
A further appeal to the Swiss supreme court can be filed by the prosecutors' office, which said in a statement it "will decide about how to further proceed."
The court said Platini is entitled to almost 180,000 Swiss francs ($204,000) in compensation and Blatter about 110,000 Swiss francs ($125,000). Most is from the Swiss state and 1,500 Swiss francs ($1,700) each from FIFA.
FIFA was approached for comment on the verdict. Decade-long case
Blatter and Platini have consistently denied wrongdoing in a decade-long case that ultimately came to nothing in court yet totally altered world soccer body FIFA.
The legal case swung on their claims of a verbal agreement to one day settle the money in question.
Blatter approved FIFA paying 2 million Swiss francs (now $2.21 million) to France soccer great Platini in February 2011 for supplementary and non-contracted salary working as a presidential advisor from 1998-2002.
The latest win for Blatter and the 69-year-old Platini came exactly 9½ years since the Swiss federal investigation was revealed and kicked off events that ended the careers of the two men.
That September 2015 day in Zurich, police came to interrogate them at FIFA after an executive committee meeting when Platini was a strong favorite to succeed his one-time mentor in an upcoming election.
With Platini soon suspended and banned by FIFA, European soccer body UEFA ran his long-time general secretary Gianni Infantino as its election candidate. Infantino was a surprise winner in February 2016 and is set to lead FIFA until at least 2031. Corruption crises
Though federal court trials have twice cleared their names, Blatter's reputation likely always will be tied to leading FIFA during corruption crises that took down a swath of senior soccer officials worldwide. Two were convicted in 2017 after a trial in a U.S. federal court in Brooklyn.
Platini, one of soccer's greatest players and later Blatter's protégé in soccer politics, never did get the FIFA presidency he often called his destiny.
Neither Blatter nor Platini has worked in soccer since they were suspended by the FIFA ethics committee in October 2015. They were later banned and failed to overturn the bans in separate appeals to the Court of Arbitration for Sport in 2016.
"The criminal proceedings have had not only legal but also massive personal and professional consequences for Michel Platini, although no incriminating evidence was ever presented," Nellen said, suggesting further legal action "against those responsible for the criminal proceedings."
Platini's ban expired in 2019 and Blatter was given a subsequent ban by FIFA in 2021 months before his first was due to end.
Asked Tuesday if he might return to soccer, Platini quipped: "I am too old. I look young but I am very old."
Blatter is exiled from soccer until late in 2028 — when he will be 92 — because of an ethics prosecution of alleged self-dealing in eight-figure management bonuses paid for successfully organizing the men's World Cup in 2010 and 2014. 'Gentleman's agreement'
The verdict was given Tuesday in a low-key provincial courthouse where a four-day trial was held three weeks ago.
Blatter and Platini have 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.
Platini was a storied former captain and coach of the France national term when he worked to help Blatter get elected to lead FIFA in Paris on the eve of the 1998 World Cup he organized.
The two men said Platini agreed to be a presidential adviser on an annual salary of 300,000 Swiss francs (now $340,000) 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, citing seven-figure payments made to senior Blatter aides who left FIFA which showed the soccer body could afford to pay him. The payment was finally made in February 2011.
Details of the payment only emerged in the crisis that hit FIFA in May 2015 when U.S. federal investigators unsealed a sweeping investigation of international soccer officials. Swiss authorities made early-morning arrests at hotels in Zurich before seizing FIFA financial and business records.
In 2015, Swiss federal prosecutors already were handling a criminal complaint filed by FIFA. That was about suspected financial wrongdoing linked to votes in December 2010 that picked Russia and Qatar as future World Cup hosts.
Reporting by The Associated Press.
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