The Swiss prosecutor’s office requested this Wednesday a year and eight months in prison in abeyance against former soccer player Michel Platini and former Fifa president Sepp Blatteraccusing them of having defrauded the football body by obtaining the Frenchman an unjustified payment of 2 million Swiss francs (1.8 million euros).
The Federal Criminal Court of Bellinzona (southeast) will announce its decision on July 8 about this case that ended the careers of both leaders, and for which they are theoretically exposed to up to five years in prison.
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Prosecutor Thomas Hildbrand did not claim a prison sentence firmly against the 66-year-old former French player and the 86-year-old Swiss.
For more than four and a half hours he dedicated himself to dismantling the thesis of an “oral contract” closed between the two men for consulting work carried out by Platini between 1998 and 2002.
Blatter, a former Fifa president, and Platini signed a written agreement in August 1999, which stipulated 300,000 Swiss francs a year paid by Fifa. But they claimed to have agreed to pay an additional 700,000 Swiss francs a year when the organization’s finances permitted.
Platini, while becoming president of Uefa, and placed in an advantageous position to become president of Fifa, presented an invoice for 2 million Swiss francs (1.8 million euros) at the beginning of 2011, signed by Sepp
Blatter and submitted to Fifa as an unpaid salary.
Agreeing on these sums without leaving a written record, without witnesses and without ever provisioning them in the accounts is “contrary to commercial usage” and to the customs of Fifa, Thomas Hildbrand insisted.
Blatter, ‘the chameleon’
“Only his behavior counts from the point of view of criminal law,” recalled the prosecutor, leaving aside any political dimension of the case.
This despite the fact that the dossier was not uncovered until 2015 and propelled Gianni Infantino to the head of Fifa, right arm of Michel Platini at Uefa, who has been the subject of a different procedure since 2020 for three secret meetings with the prosecution.
“When a chameleon feels threatened it changes colour: Blatter does the same”, launched Thomas Hildbrand, for which “there is no reason why Fifa” would have had to defer payment.
And as an added inconsistency in the opinion of the prosecution, Platini ended up claiming at the beginning of 2011 500,000 francs per year for this period, instead of the 700,000, explaining ‘a posteriori’ not having verified the amount that had been paid initially.
“Is it that only at the time of the invoice to Fifa would he have lost his mathematical abilities?” the magistrate wondered, remembering that Platini passed a “calculation test” without any problem during his interrogation. Started last Wednesday, the process must continue until June 22, with the allegations of the Fifa -civil part- and the defenses.
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AFP
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