(Berne) Ex-FIFA executives Sepp Blatter and Michel Platini were charged with fraud and other mischief by Swiss prosecutors on Tuesday after a six-year investigation into a controversial payment of 2 million $.
Blatter, who is 85, and Platini, 65, will now be brought to trial in Switzerland within a few months.
“This payment harmed FIFA’s finances and illegally enriched Platini,” Swiss prosecutors said in a statement.
The September 2015 dossier led to Blatter’s hasty departure from his post as FIFA president, and ended the campaign of then-UEFA president Platini to succeed him.
Criminal cases in Switzerland sometimes take years to know their outcome.
The investigation focused on a written request from Platini sent to FIFA in January 2011 demanding the payment of additional deferred salary for having served as an advisor to the president during Blatter’s first term, between 1998 and 2002.
Blatter authorized FIFA to make this payment a few weeks later. He was preparing his re-election campaign against Qatari Mohammed bin Hammam, and Platini’s influence with European voters played a decisive role in the outcome of the election.
Blatter and Platini have always denied having committed a mischief and cited a verbal agreement concluded more than 20 years ago between them, for the payment of the disputed amount.
Blatter has been charged with fraud, fraudulent management, embezzlement of FIFA funds and forging documents. Platini has been charged with fraud, embezzlement and forging documents, in addition to being seen as Blatter’s accomplice in this case.
Platini, a legendary French soccer player, was under investigation as of last year only, and a few months later fraud charges were added against the two suspects.
Prosecutors launched a criminal investigation against Blatter in September 2015, before a search of FIFA offices in Zurich – when he and Platini attended a meeting of the organization’s executive committee.