BELLINZONA, Switzerland —
Sepp Blatter and
Michel Platini, once the chiefs of world and European football, went on trial
in Switzerland on Wednesday over a suspected fraudulent payment.
اضافة اعلان
Former
FIFA president Blatter, 86, and Platini, 66,
appeared in the Federal Criminal Court in the southern city of Bellinzona,
following an investigation that began in 2015 and lasted six years.
The pair are being tried over a two million Swiss
franc ($2.08 million) payment in 2011 to Platini, who was then in charge of
European football’s governing body UEFA.
The former French football great “submitted to FIFA
in 2011 an allegedly fictitious invoice for a (alleged) debt still existing for
his activity as an adviser for FIFA in the years 1998 to 2002,” according to
the court.
He and retired Swiss football administrator Blatter
could face up to five years in jail.
Both have been accused of fraud and forgery of a
document. Blatter is accused of misappropriation and criminal mismanagement,
while Platini is accused of participating in those offences.
The trial will conclude on June 22, with the three
judges expected to deliver their verdict on July 8.
Retired Swiss football administrator Blatter,
wearing a three-piece suit and a white shirt, arrived at the court with his
daughter Corinne and his lawyer Lorenz Erni.
Platini arrived wearing a suit and a blue and white
pinstripe shirt before the trial opened at 9:00am.
Allies turned rivals
The judges will have to go through the friendship formed between the
defendants, their growing rivalry and then their joint ejection from world
football — but also distinguish that from the alleged crimes at the heart of
the court case.
The indictment was
filed by the Office of the Attorney General of Switzerland (OAG).
Both FIFA and
UEFA are headquartered in Switzerland, in Zurich, and Nyon respectively.
Platini and
Blatter were banned from the sport at the very moment when the former seemed
ideally placed to succeed Blatter at the helm of world football’s governing
body.
The two allies
became rivals as Platini grew impatient to take over, while Blatter’s tenure
was brought to a swift end by a separate 2015 FIFA corruption scandal
investigated by the
US Federal Bureau of Investigation.
In the Bellinzona
trial, the defense and the prosecution agree on one point: Platini was employed
as an adviser to Blatter between 1998 and 2002. They signed a contract in 1999
for an annual remuneration of 300,000 Swiss francs.
“The compensation
agreed in accordance with this contract was invoiced by Platini on each
occasion and paid in full by FIFA,” said the OAG.
Payment ‘without legal basis’
However, more than eight
years after the end of his advisory role, the former France captain “demanded a
payment in the amount of two million francs”, the OAG alleged.
“With Blatter’s involvement, FIFA made a payment to
Platini in said amount at the beginning of 2011. The evidence gathered by the
OAG has corroborated that this payment to Platini was made without a legal
basis. This payment damaged FIFA’s assets and unlawfully enriched Platini,” the
federal prosecution alleges.
The men insist that they had, from the outset,
orally agreed to an annual salary of one million francs.
As a civil party, FIFA wants to be reimbursed the
money paid in 2011 so that it is “returned to the one and only purpose for
which it was intended: football”, its lawyer Catherine Hohl-Chirazi told AFP.
Joseph “Sepp”
Blatter joined FIFA in 1975, became its general secretary in 1981 and the
president of world football’s governing body in 1998.
He was forced to stand down in 2015 and was banned
by FIFA for eight years, later reduced to six, over ethics breaches for
authorizing the payment to Platini, allegedly made in his own interests rather
than FIFA’s.
Platini is regarded among world football’s
greatest-ever players. He won the Ballon d’Or, considered the most prestigious
individual award, three times -- in 1983, 1984 and 1985.
Platini was UEFA’s president from January 2007 to
December 2015.
He appealed against his initial eight-year
suspension at the Court of Arbitration for Sport, which reduced it to four
years.
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