Tuesday, March 25, 2025
Year : 2, Issue: 30
Reuters: Former FIFA President Sepp Blatter and France football great Michel Platini were both cleared of corruption charges by a Swiss court on Tuesday, two and a half years after they were first acquitted of the offences.
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 ($2.26 million) payment Blatter authorised for Platini in 2011.
The court said there were doubts about the prosecution’s allegation the payment for Platini, a former captain and manager 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.
But the court cleared the pair, saying their account of an oral agreement for the payment could not be ruled out.
The Swiss attorney general’s office said it would review the written judgement, before deciding whether to appeal again to the Swiss Federal Court, the country’s highest legal authority.
