“This payment damaged FIFA’s assets and unlawfully enriched Platini,” Swiss federal prosecutors said, referring to one of the charged former officials.
Former FIFA officials Sepp Blatter and Michel Platini were charged with fraud and other charges Tuesday for a controversial $2 million payment made around the time Blatter was planning to begin his re-election campaign for president of the governing body, the Associated Press reported. If convicted, the 85-year-old Blatter and 66-year-old Platini could face several years behind bars, though cases in Switzerland tend to go on for years. Platini wrote a request to FIFA in January 2011 to be sent additional payment for working as a presidential adviser to Blatter in his first term in the position from 1998 to 2002. Blatter told FIFA to fulfill the request from Platini, who was believed to have influence with European voters at the time, just as he was preparing to campaign for reelection. “This payment damaged FIFA’s assets and unlawfully enriched Platini,” Swiss federal prosecutors said in a statement. The charges against Blatter and Platini come after six years of investigations since the case was opened in September 2015, when Blatter was also removed from his presidential role ahead of schedule and Platini’s bid to succeed him was halted. Both men will go on trial in federal criminal court in Bellinoza. For more reporting from the Associated Press, see below. Both Blatter and Platini have long denied wrongdoing and cited a verbal agreement they had made, now more than 20 years ago, for the money to be paid. Blatter has been charged with fraud, mismanagement, misappropriation of FIFA funds and forgery of a document. Platini has been charged with fraud, misappropriation, forgery and as an accomplice to Blatter’s alleged mismanagement.
