Two Former World Football Heads Have Been Indicted For Fraud -

On Tuesday November 2, two former Presidents of FIFA and UEFA respectively Sepp Blatter and Michel Platini, were prosecuted for fraud in Switzerland according to the country’s principal legal officer.

The Office of the Attorney General of Switzerland (OAG) is accusing the two people for unlawfully organizing a payment of 2 million Swiss Francs (current worth US $2.19 million) from FIFA to Platini.

The attorney general spread out the supposed offenses in a web-based proclamation, which said that somewhere in the range of 1998 and 2002, Michel Platini functioned as a consultant for the then FIFA President Joseph Blatter.

In 1999, a yearly compensation of CHF 300,000 (US $328,000) was settled upon in a written contract for this advisory movement. Thr written contract was endorsed by both Blatter and Platini.

The remuneration concurred as per this contract was invoiced by Platini on each event and settled completely by FIFA.

In any case, in 2011, over eight years after his contract ended, Platini requested a payment in the measure of CHF 2 million. With Blatter’s consent, FIFA made a payment to Platini in said sum toward the start of 2011.

The assertion says:

“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”.

Blatter, 85, has been accused by the Office of the Attorney General of Switzerland (OAG) for fraud, mismanagement, misappropriation and the forgery of a document.

Platini, 66, is also accused for fraud, participating in misappropriation, engaging in mismanagement, as an accomplice and the forgery of a document.

In an assertion by Blatter, he said:

“I look forward to the trial before the Federal Criminal Court with optimism and I hope that this story will come to an end and that all the facts will be dealt with properly.”

the payment of the sum of two million francs from FIFA to Michel Platini, I can only repeat myself: It was based on an oral contract that regulated Platini’s advisory activities for FIFA between 1998 and 2002,” he added.

Blatter said the payment to Platini was “endorsed by all mindful FIFA bodies” and that Platini “paid tax on the sum at his Swiss spot of home.”

Platini said in a statement that the decision by the Swiss Public Prosecutor’s Office (MPC) to arraign him was an expansion of the MPC’s determination to need to unduly embroil him for a position in which his whole good faith had been perceived.

“I fully challenge these unfounded and unfair accusations,” he added. Meanwhile,
FIFA also says:

‘There are no written records of any such agreement’. “This decision relates to a sum of CHF two million which Mr Blatter authorised to be paid to Mr Platini in February 2011”.

The payment was made shortly before the FIFA Presidential election in 2011 at which time Mr Blatter was elected for a fourth consecutive term as FIFA President.

The sum of CHF two million was supposedly due to be paid for work carried out by Mr Platini more than 10 years before. There are no written records of any such agreement,” they added.

As recently announced, FIFA has as of now made strides in the Swiss courts to recuperate this money from the two (Sepp Blatter and Platini) as it considers the cash to have been unlawfully paid by one to the next.

If and when the funds are effectively recovered, they will be diverted once more into football development, as they ought to have been in any case.

The decision of the Office of the Attorney General comes after an investigation concerning the matter by the Swiss authorities that has, until now, kept going around 6 years.

Both Mr Blatter and Mr Platini were banned from football in 2015 regarding this payment and that ban was maintained both in the Court of Arbitration for Sport and by the Swiss Federal Tribunal.

In 2020, the European Court of Human Rights consistently pronounced Mr Platini’s application forbidden. FIFA will intently follow subsequent steps taken in this matter.