Trial begins against Blatter and Platini for alleged corruption

The trial for alleged improper payments and corruption against former FIFA president Sepp Blatter and French soccer legend Michel Platini began on Wednesday in Switzerland with both defendants appearing confident of their innocence.

Thomas Osborne
Thomas Osborne
08 June 2022 Wednesday 03:42
10 Reads
Trial begins against Blatter and Platini for alleged corruption

The trial for alleged improper payments and corruption against former FIFA president Sepp Blatter and French soccer legend Michel Platini began on Wednesday in Switzerland with both defendants appearing confident of their innocence. Swiss prosecutors are accusing the pair, once among the most powerful figures in world football, of having illegally arranged a payment of 2 million Swiss francs ($2.08 million) in 2011.

Blatter and Platini deny the charges. Three judges from the Federal Criminal Court of Bellinzona, in Switzerland, will take charge of the case in a trial that will last until June 22. If convicted, Platini and Blatter will face up to five years in prison. Both have denied any wrongdoing and say they had a verbal agreement on the payment, related to Platini's consulting work carried out between 1998 and 2002.

Blatter, once the most powerful figure in world football, arrived at court looking frail and accompanied by his daughter Corinne and his lawyer. "I am absolutely confident, the sun is shining ... and I am in a good mood," Blatter told reporters before the court hearing. "I know that I have not done anything against the law. My life was football, for 45 years with FIFA. My life is football"

Platini, former UEFA president, was also confident and joked that he would have to take a German course to be able to follow the process. "I am convinced that justice will be fully and definitively done to me after so many years of savage accusations and slander," he said in a statement before the trial began. "We will prove in court that I acted with the utmost honesty, that the payment of the remaining salaries was owed to me by FIFA and that it is perfectly legal."

The Swiss Attorney General's Office (OAG) has accused Blatter and Platini of "fraud, in the alternative misappropriation, in the additional alternative criminal mismanagement, as well as document falsification." Platini, the former UEFA president who as a player captained the France soccer team to victory at Euro 1984, was also charged as an accessory.

Blatter, 85, and Platini, 66, were disqualified in 2016 from holding positions in world soccer for six years over the controversial payment, made with Blatter's approval for work done a decade earlier. "FIFA has brought a civil action against Blatter and Platini so that the money that was illegally embezzled is returned to FIFA, so that it can be used for the sole purpose for which it was originally intended: football," said Catherine Hohl- Chirazi, FIFA lawyer.