Sepp Blatter And Michel Platini Acquitted In FIFA Corruption Trial By Swiss Court Over £1.7m Payment

A Swiss court has cleared both Sepp Blatter and Michel Platini of corruption charges.

Former FIFA president Blatter, 86, had been accused on unlawfully arranging a payment from football’s world governing body to ex-UEFA chief Platini, 67, worth £1.73million.

The two, once among the most powerful figures in global soccer, had denied the charges against them.

The case meant Blatter ended his reign as FIFA president in disgrace and was in part responsible for ending Platini’s hopes of succeeding him, after he was banned from football when the affair came to light.

Blatter had said the two-million Swiss franc payment followed a “gentlemen’s agreement” between the pair when he asked Platini to be his technical adviser in 1998.

Platini worked as a consultant between 1998 and 2002 with an annual salary of 300,000 Swiss francs – the most FIFA could afford because of money troubles the organisation had at the time, Blatter told the court.

The rest of Platini’s one million Swiss franc annual salary was to be settled at a later date, Blatter said.

Motives for the payment were unclear, although the two men met in 2010 and discussed the upcoming elections for the FIFA presidency in 2011.

When Blatter approved the payment, he was campaigning for re-election against Mohamed bin Hammam of Qatar. Platini, then president of UEFA, was seen as having sway with European members who could influence the vote.

The payment emerged following a huge investigation launched by the U.S. Department of Justice into bribery, fraud and money-laundering at FIFA in 2015, which triggered Blatter’s resignation.

Both officials were banned in 2015 from soccer for eight years over the payment, although their bans were later reduced.

Platini, who also lost his job as UEFA president following the ban, said the affair was a deliberate attempt to thwart his attempt to become FIFA president in 2015.

Platini’s former general secretary at UEFA, Gianni Infantino, entered the FIFA race and won the election in 2016.