Swiss prosecutor seeks suspended sentences for Sepp Blatter and Michel Platini

MUTTENZ – The Swiss public prosecutor on March 4 requested suspended sentences of 20 months for both Sepp Blatter and Michel Platini in an appeal against their 2022 acquittal in a corruption case.

An extraordinary appeal court sitting in Muttenz near Basel will hand down its decision on March 25, in a long-running legal saga which shattered the careers of Blatter, the former president of world football’s governing body Fifa, and Platini, ex-head of European body Uefa.

Prosecutor Thomas Hildbrand opted not to call for prison sentences for the 88-year-old Swiss and 69-year-old Frenchman.

The case began in 2015 when Blatter quit as head of Fifa in a corruption crisis. It stems from a delayed payment of 2 million Swiss francs (S$3 million) Fifa paid Platini in 2011 for consultancy services.

The pair were acquitted by the Swiss Federal Court in June 2022 of charges that included “disloyal management”, “breach of trust” and “forgery of securities”.

The court concluded that fraud was “not established with a likelihood bordering on certainty”, and therefore applied the general principle of criminal law according to which “the doubt must benefit the accused”. The Swiss Attorney-General’s Office appealed against that decision.

In his 3½-hour argument on March 4, Hildbrand set out to dispel the defendants’ assertion that they had an “oral contract” to pay Platini in 2011 for work as a consultant between 1998 and 2002.

In 2011, Platini opted not to run against Blatter, who was then re-elected as Fifa president.

Blatter and Platini had signed a written agreement in August 1999, before the Frenchman became Uefa president, providing for an annual payment by Fifa of 300,000 Swiss francs for consultancy work.

At the beginning of 2011, Platini presented an invoice for 2 million Swiss francs. Blatter approved it and presented it to Fifa as a late salary balance.

The defendants say they had agreed a yearly sum of 1 million Swiss francs but that this was too much for Fifa finances at the time.

Hildbrand said the argument was implausible. Even if Fifa had transferred 1 million Swiss francs to Platini in 1999, it would still have had “more than 21 million francs in cash”, and its reserves had reached 328 million in 2002.

To agree such a sum without a written record, without witnesses and without ever making provision for it in the accounts was, he said, “contrary to commercial practice” as well as to Fifa’s norms.

The appeal trial, which began on March 3, is due to continue until March 6 at the latest, with closing arguments from the defence. AFP