September 17 – It has become something of a never-ending saga involving the two men who were once the most powerful in world and European football. But it could finally be reaching its denouement.
A second appeal trial against former FIFA president Sepp Blatter and ex-UEFA boss Michel Platini into the infamous “disloyal payment” debacle will take place in March next year according to Swiss and French reports.
The pair, who presided over their respective organisations before being swallowed up by the case, were acquitted in July 2022 of fraud, embezzlement and other corruption charges in a criminal action brought by Swiss judicial authorities that gripped world football politics.
The acquittals took place despite both having been banned from the game by FIFA, but prosecutors immediately appealed.
The not guilty verdicts into Blatter, who led FIFA for 17 years, and Platini, the one-time UEFA boss who courted and coveted Blatter’s job but never got it, was a hugely significant in their respective bids to clear their names but a blow – not for the first time – to the Swiss judicial process and to FIFA.
The verdict followed an 11-day trial at the Federal Criminal Court of Switzerland and centred around the so-called $2 million “disloyal payment” from FIFA to Platini with Blatter’s approval in 2011, for work done a decade earlier. Both men had denied wrongdoing and said the transfer was belated payment for Platini’s advisory work for Blatter though there was no written proof of it. Blatter had described it as a “gentleman’s agreement”.
Now, just when they thought they were free of any legal follow-up, they will be back in the spotlight when the case is examined once more.
The case will be heard in March 2025 at the Strafjusizzentrum in Mutteenz before the extraordinary appeals chamber of the Judicial Court of canton of Basel-Landschaft.
When Blatter approved the payment, he was campaigning for re-election against Mohamed bin Hammam. Platini, then still president of UEFA, was seen as having sway with European members who could influence the vote.
The payment emerged following a huge investigation launched by the U.S. Department of Justice into bribery, fraud and money-laundering in 2015 which snared a raft of FIFA bigwigs, became known as the FifaGate scandal and triggered Blatter’s resignation.
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