Blatter, Platini Cleared of Corruption Charges by Swiss Appeals Court

Former FIFA President Sepp Blatter and former UEFA president, Michel Platini have been cleared of corruption charges by a Swiss appeals court, two and a half years after they were first acquitted of the offenses.

The pair were cleared of fraud on Tuesday at the Extraordinary Appeals Chamber of the Swiss Criminal Court in Muttenz, near Basel in a hearing that came after Swiss federal prosecutors appealed against the two men’s 2022 acquittal in a lower court. Blatter

Announcing the acquital, Platini’s lawyer Dominic Nellen said in a statement. “After two acquittals, even the Office of the Attorney General of Switzerland must realize that these criminal proceedings have definitively failed. Michel Platini must finally be left in peace in criminal matters,”

Case Details

The case related to a 2 million Swiss franc ($2.26m) payment Blatter authorised for Platini, a former captain and manager of the French national team, in 2011. as a consultancy fee paid to Platini for work carried out from 1998 to 2002 that the Frenchman said had been partly deferred because FIFA lacked the funds to pay him in full immediately.

The scandal, which emerged in 2015 when Platini was president of UEFA, European football’s ruling body, ended his hopes of succeeding Blatter, who was forced out of FIFA over the affair.

The scandal effectively pushed both men into oblivion in terms of Football Administration with Aleksander Ceferin succeeding Platini as UEFA president and Giani Infantino succeeding Blatter as FIFA president in the aftermath of the case coming to light.