Former FIFA president Sepp Blatter and ex-UEFA president Michel Platini have finally seen the curtain fall on a saga that lasted more than a decade, Afrosport reports.
The office of Switzerland’s attorney general announced on Thursday that it would not challenge the March verdicts of an appeal court, which cleared both men of any wrongdoing.
Blatter and Platini had first gone on trial in 2022, facing charges of fraud, forgery, mismanagement and the misappropriation of more than $2 million of FIFA money in 2011. Both men denied the allegations, insisting the payment was simply delayed compensation for Platini’s work as a FIFA adviser during Blatter’s first term as president, which ran until 2002.
“Following the failure of the criminal proceedings, the defence will now analyse how to take legal action against those responsible for initiating the proceedings,” Platini’s lawyer, Dominic Nellen, said in a statement.
The controversial payment first surfaced in 2015 during United States and Swiss federal investigations into corruption at FIFA and among senior football officials.
The payment of FIFA money to France soccer great Platini emerged in 2015 during federal investigations of the governing body and international soccer officials by federal investigators in the United States and Switzerland.
Although the case ultimately collapsed, the fallout was severe. Both Blatter and Platini were forced out of office, paving the way for Gianni Infantino’s election as FIFA president and Aleksander Ceferin’s rise to the UEFA presidency in 2016.
“Among other things, the criminal proceedings prevented [Platini’s] election as FIFA president in 2016,” Nellen added. “The criminal proceedings had not only legal but also massive personal and professional consequences for Michel Platini — even though no incriminating evidence was ever presented.”
By accepting the appeal court’s verdict, Swiss prosecutors said they were “closing another chapter in the complex procedures related to football.”
