French football legend Michel Platini says his honour has been restored after acquittal

MUTTENZ, Switzerland – French football great Michel Platini said on March 25 that he was “very happy” and felt that his honour had been restored after a Swiss court acquitted him of fraud.

The 69-year-old and former Fifa president Sepp Blatter, 89, were both cleared of corruption charges, 2½ years after they were first acquitted of the offences.

“The persecution of Fifa and some Swiss federal prosecutors for 10 years is now over,” Platini said. “It is now totally over. And for me, today, my honour has returned and I am very happy.”

Platini, a former captain and manager of the French national team, said he had received 10,000 messages of support and would celebrate the decision by going to a restaurant.

The pair, once among the most powerful figures in global football, were cleared of fraud at the Extraordinary Appeals Chamber of the Swiss Criminal Court in the town of Muttenz, near Basel.

The hearing came about after Swiss federal prosecutors appealed against their 2022 acquittal at a lower court.

Both men had denied the charge which related to a 2 million Swiss franc (S$3.05 million) payment Blatter authorised for Platini in 2011.

The court said there were doubts about the prosecution’s allegation that the payment for Platini, a former captain and coach of the French national team, was fraudulent.

The 2022 indictment had accused Blatter and Platini of deceiving Fifa staff in 2010 and 2011 about an obligation for world football’s ruling body to pay Platini.

“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 said.

But the court cleared the pair, saying their account of an oral agreement for the payment could not be ruled out.

Platini had argued that the payment had been partly deferred until 2011 because Fifa lacked the funds to pay him in full immediately.

The court said the pair had both been consistent in their accounts of the payment, which covered consultancy work carried out by Platini for Blatter between 1998 and 2002.

Platini’s experience as a top footballer and coach explained the size of the payment, said the court, which followed the legal principle that in cases of doubt, favour the accused.

“It cannot be assumed that the defendants acted with the intention of enriching themselves in the sense of the charged offences,” the court said.

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

Blatter and Platini were suspended from football in 2015 by Fifa for ethics breaches, originally for eight years, although their exclusions were later reduced.

Platini said he thought the case had been intended to prevent him becoming Fifa president, but he was now too old to return to football.

The money, which had been confiscated and held by the Swiss authorities, can now be returned to him.

A frail-looking Blatter hugged his daughter Corinne after the judgment and said he was relieved with the decision.

“It is a great relief for me because it’s been going on for 10 years. It’s like a sword of Damocles hanging over my head,” he said. “And now it’s over and I can breathe.”

Prosecutors had sought a sentence of 20 months in jail, suspended for two years for both Blatter and Platini.

The Swiss attorney general’s office said it would review the written judgment, before deciding whether to appeal again to the Swiss Federal Court, the country’s highest legal authority. REUTERS, AFP