Michel Platini and the former president of Fifa, the Swiss Sepp Blatter, were acquitted this Friday in Switzerland, in the fraud case which shattered in 2015 the ambitions of the Frenchman to reach the head of world football .
The court did not follow the prosecution’s requisitions
The Federal Criminal Court of Bellinzona did not follow the prosecution’s requisitions, which had requested mid-June respectively one year and eight months suspended prison sentence, while the two defendants proclaimed their innocence. For two weeks, the 67-year-old Frenchman and the 86-year-old Swiss had appeared to have “illegally obtained, at the expense of Fifa, a payment of 2 million Swiss francs” (1.8 million euros) “in favor of Michel Platini”.
“False invoice” against “gentlemen’s agreement”
Defense and prosecution agreed on one point: the triple Ballon d’or advised Sepp Blatter well between 1998 and 2002, during the latter’s first term as head of FIFA, and the two men signed a contract in 1999 agreeing to an annual remuneration of 300,000 Swiss francsfully paid for by Fifa.
But in January 2011, Michel Platini, who in the meantime became president of Uefa “asserted a claim of 2 million Swiss francs”qualified as “false invoice” by the prosecution.
Both men pound on their side that they had from the outset decided on an annual salary of one million Swiss francs, by a “gentlemen’s agreement” oral and without witnesses, without the finances of Fifa allowing immediate payment to Michel Platini.