By Paul Nicholson
September 29 – The bomb that dropped on FIFA president Sepp Blatter and UEFA president Michel Platini on Friday following the Swiss Federal Prosecutor’s investigation of a suspicious payment to Platini of SFr2 million, may have just exploded.
Reports are emerging that Platini in fact received a lot more than that sum via monthly payments from FIFA.
The SFr 2 million paid to him by FIFA in 2011, and sanctioned by Blatter, has been explained as work that was carried out between 1999 and 2002. But it now appears that Platini may have been double-paid.
A report by Tim Rohn in German paper Die Welt says that Platini in fact received monthly payments from FIFA between January 1999 and June 2001 as part of an employment contract.
While there has been no complete documentation released, the actual amount paid is estimated at between SFr300,000 and SFr500,000 annually.
The Swiss authorities have highlighted the SFr2 million as a “disloyal payment” sanctioned by Blatter, hence begging the question that if Platini had in fact already been paid for his work between 1999 and 2002, what was the actual payment for in 2011?
Platini and Blatter both claimed in separate statements that the 2011 payment was perfectly legal and for the work carried out earlier by Platini for FIFA. That explanation, by anyone’s reading, now looks disingenuous.
Die Welt quotes an insider as saying that there looks to have been “a dubious treaty” between Blatter and Platini.
The payment in 2011 was made before Blatter was elected unopposed for a fourth term as FIFA president. At one point it was expected that Platini would stand against his old friend (now foe) in the election but he decided not to run. However, it was speculated that he would support Mohamed Bin Hammam’s campaign before he was excluded in the cash-for-votes scandal in the Caribbean. In the end Platini endorsed Blatter.
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