Former FIFA President Sepp Blatter and French football legend Michel Platini are set to appear in a Swiss court on Monday to face fraud charges—two and a half years after they were acquitted.
The two, once among the most powerful figures in global football, were cleared in 2022 by a lower Swiss court following a seven-year investigation into a 2 million Swiss franc ($2.22 million) payment to Platini. However, Swiss federal prosecutors have appealed the ruling, leading to a new hearing at the Extraordinary Appeals Chamber of the Swiss Criminal Court in Muttenz, near Basel.
“The Office of the Attorney General of Switzerland (OAG) has filed an appeal against the first-instance judgment and submitted a statement of appeal in October 2022 requesting that the judgment be set aside in full,” the prosecutor’s office said, declining to provide further details.
Blatter and Platini were accused of misleading FIFA staff in 2010 and 2011 about an alleged obligation for the governing body to pay Platini, who was UEFA president at the time.
“They falsely claimed that FIFA owed Platini, or that Platini was entitled to, the sum of 2 million Swiss francs for advisory work. This deception was achieved through repeated untruthful claims made by both accused parties,” the indictment stated.
The case derailed Platini’s ambitions of succeeding Blatter as FIFA president. Both were suspended from football in 2015 for ethics violations, initially for eight years, though their bans were later reduced.
In 2022, a judge ruled that their claim of a “gentlemen’s agreement” for the payment was credible and expressed doubts over the prosecution’s argument that it was fraudulent.
Now, Swiss federal prosecutors are seeking a 20-month suspended sentence for Blatter and Platini.
Blatter, who led FIFA for 17 years until 2015, has dismissed the case as a witch hunt.
“The Federal Criminal Court in 2022 said the contract between Platini and me was correct, and I expect the new court will confirm this first decision,” the 88-year-old told Reuters last week, calling the appeal “absolute nonsense.”
“I am completely confident I will be cleared. I am an honest man,” he added.
