Former FIFA President Joseph S. Blatter and former UEFA boss Michel Platini will appear in court in June. The Swiss Federal Criminal Court on Tuesday scheduled the trial against the duo for the period from June 8th to 22nd. The two former top officials had already been charged with fraud and other offenses in November 2021.
Since September 2015, the Swiss Federal Prosecutor’s Office (BA) has been conducting criminal proceedings against Blatter for an unexplained payment of two million Swiss francs (1.8 million euros) that the world football association FIFA made in 2011 to the then President of the European Football Union ( UEFA) performed. According to Blatter, the payment was made under an oral contract for consulting work Platini provided between 1998 and 2002.
The BA sees it very differently. In addition to fraud, she also accuses Blatter of embezzlement, unfaithful business management and forgery. Platini must answer for the aid to this. “The evidence collected by the BA has strengthened the suspicion that this payment to Platini was made without legal basis,” the authority said. “This payment damaged FIFA’s assets and Platini was unlawfully enriched.”
“I’m looking forward to the hearing before the Federal Criminal Court with optimism,” Blatter said in November. He hopes “that this story will come to an end and that all the facts will be properly processed”. Platini was also “completely confident and relaxed”. He regrets the “intransigence” of the public prosecutor’s office and “completely denies these unfounded and unjust allegations,” he told the AFP news agency at the time.
The Frenchman was originally only to be heard as a “supporting witness”. Because of the suspicion of complicity, the procedure was then extended to Platini. The matter brought both of them a ban of several years on a sports policy level. Among other things, this prevented Platini from running for the office of FIFA President. Blatter and Platini have always denied the allegations.