Almost ten years after its beginning, the Blatter-Platini affair will reach its judicial epilogue in Switzerland. The world On Monday 16 September, we learned from several sources that the appeal process of Joseph (aka Sepp) Blatter, president of the International Football Federation (FIFA) from 1998 to 2015, and Michel Platini, who headed the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) from 2007 to 2015, acquitted at first instance, will take place in March 2025, with debates scheduled from 3 to 6 and from 11 to 13, and a deliberation on the 25th.
This time, the trial will not take place before the Federal Criminal Court (TPF) in Bellinzona (canton of Ticino): the hearing will take place in Liestal, before the extraordinary appeals chamber of the Judicial Court of the canton of Basel-Land.
The appeals chamber will be composed of cantonal judges after Platini obtained, in March, from the Swiss Federal Court in Lausanne, the recusal of the judges of the Bellinzona TPF appeal court, presided over by Judge Olivier Thormann. The latter opened criminal proceedings in the Blatter-Platini case in September 2015.
The Confederation’s Public Prosecutor’s Office (MPC), to which FIFA is associated, had appealed the acquittal, on 8 July 2022 by the TPF, of Michel Platini and Sepp Blatter in the case of the alleged unfair payment of €2 million (around €2.1 million at the current exchange rate) received, in February 2011, by the former number 10 of Les Bleus, at the request of the former head of FIFA.
The two men were prosecuted for “fraud, mismanagement, breach of trust and falsification of securities” as part of the investigation led by federal prosecutor Thomas Hildbrand. The TPF judges concluded that, “contrary to the accusation”the 2 million Swiss francs paid by Blatter to Platini under “retroactive remuneration” for his mission as advisor to the President of FIFA (between 1998 and 2002)” were in debt. »
In essence, the TPF gave more credence to the thesis of the two former leaders than to that of the MPC. Both claimed that this payment was a remainder of salary according to an oral agreement in 1998 concerning the remuneration paid to the Frenchman of one million Swiss francs annually as an advisor to the FIFA president.
The two former leaders will be present at the trial
The TPF had estimated that “The facts challenged by the Prosecution cannot be considered proven with a probability that reaches the limit of certainty, which leaves the court with serious doubts about the version of the facts presented by the Prosecution.”
You have 35.56% of this article left to read. The rest is reserved for subscribers.
