Former FIFA President Sepp Blatter and former UEFA President Michel Platini were both cleared of corruption charges by a Swiss court on Tuesday, Afrosport reports.
The pair were cleared of fraud at a hearing at the Extraordinary Appeals Chamber of the Swiss Criminal Court in Muttenz. The hearing came two-and-a-half years after they were first acquitted of the offences at a lower court, but federal prosecutors appealed.
Both men had denied the charge of a two million Swiss franc payment Blatter authorised for Platini in 2011, with the court claiming doubts about the prosecution’s allegation that the payment was fraudulent.
The 2022 indictment also accused Blatter and Platini of deceiving FIFA staff in 2010 and 2011 about an obligation for FIFA to pay Platini.
“They falsely claimed that FIFA owed Platini, or that Platini was entitled to, the sum of 2 million Swiss francs for advisory work. This deception was achieved through repeated untruthful claims made by both accused parties,” the indictment said.
“It cannot be assumed that the defendants acted with the intention of enriching themselves in the sense of the charged offences.”
The scandal, which emerged in 2015, led to the suspension of Blatter and Platini from all football-related activities for eight years, but this was later reduced.
Platini and Blatter, after the judgement, said he was relieved the case was over. The money, which had been confiscated and held by the Swiss authorities, can now be returned to Platini.
Meanwhile, the Swiss attorney general’s office said it would review the written judgement before deciding whether to appeal again to Switzerland’s highest court, the Swiss Federal Court.
