The French Michel Platini (66 years) and the Swiss Sepp Blatter (86 years) – the two former leaders of the soccer world are accused of having defrauded FIFA by obtaining for Michel Platini a payment of 2 million francs. The decision of the Federal Criminal Court will be made on July 8. The Swiss prosecutor’s office has announced the charges against the two men, accused of defrauding FIFA, the world soccer body, by obtaining an unjustified payment.
Prosecutor Thomas Hildbrand was adamant about the “deception” attributed to the defendants, but refrained from calling for a firm sentence. In principle, the former directors – whose fate will be decided on 8 July – are liable to five years’ imprisonment. The latter will also have to pay compensation of about 2.2 million francs. The two men are accused of defrauding the soccer authority by obtaining an unjustified payment of 2 million francs for the Frenchman.
“Only their conduct in terms of criminal law,” said the prosecutor from the outset, leaving out any political dimension to focus on the 2 million Swiss francs granted in 2011 by FIFA to Michel Platini, with the approval of Sepp Blatter.
Blatter, the “chameleon
So it does not matter that this case has resurfaced only in 2015 and propelled to the head of world soccer the unexpected Gianni Infantino, Michel Platini’s right-hand man at UEFA, targeted since 2020 by a separate procedure for three secret meetings with the prosecution. Heard last Thursday by the court, the 66-year-old Frenchman and the 86-year-old Swiss ensure have “orally” decided that Platini would receive 1 million Swiss francs per year to advise Blatter between 1998 and 2002, just after helping him to become head of FIFA.
But this agreement concluded without witnesses, contrary to “commercial practices” and never provisioned in the accounts of the organization, was invented after the fact to justify the bill presented in 2011 by the triple Golden Ball winner, replied Wednesday Thomas Hildbrand. For him, the work of Platini was fully covered by a contract of August 1999 providing 300,000 Swiss francs annually, where the two men claim to have agreed to pay “the rest later” when the finances of FIFA would allow.
Unbelievable, the magistrate swept aside: even if the authority had paid 1 million Swiss francs to Platini in 1999, it would still have had “more than 21 million francs of cash”, reserves that had risen to 327 million in 2002. Sepp Blatter, who joined FIFA in 1975, “had perfect knowledge” of its solvency. “When a chameleon feels threatened, it changes color: Blatter does the same thing,” said Thomas Hildbrand, for whom “there is no reason why FIFA” should have delayed the payment.
