A court in Switzerland has acquitted former FIFA chief Sepp Blatter and former UEFA chief Michel Platini in a fraud case, AFP reported . Blatter paid Platini $2 million in 2011 for no reason, according to prosecutors who asked for a 20-month suspended prison sentence.
In court, the defendants insisted that it was a payment for consulting services that Platini provided to FIFA between 1998 and 2002. Initially, Platini asked for a fee of just over $1 million a year, but ultimately agreed to $300,000. There were no documents confirming this: Platini and Blatter agreed in words and entered into a “gentlemen's agreement,” the former head of FIFA explained in court. “In life I am not without sin, but in this case I am definitely innocent,” he said.
Platini did not claim his fees until 2010 because, according to him, he did not need the money. “I trusted the President [Blatter] and knew that sooner or later he would pay me,” he explained. Nevertheless, in early 2011, Platini approached Blatter and asked for his fee, as he learned that FIFA had paid significant sums to its two former employees. But the Swiss prosecutor's office considered the payment of the fee a violation of the law and accused Platini and Blatter of fraud and forgery.
A corruption scandal involving Blatter and Platini erupted in 2015: the payment to the latter became known as a result of an investigation launched by the US Department of Justice. Because of him, Blatter, who was then re-elected president of FIFA for the fifth time, had to resign. At the end of that year, the organization banned Blatter and Platini from any football-related positions for eight years.