Former FIFA President Sepp Blatter and ex-UEFA Chief Michel Platini have been acquitted for the second time on Tuesday, March 25 on appeal by the Swiss court for the long running case accsuing them for the financial wrongdoings of the FIFA money. The pair was last acquitted in 2022 and now have been acquitted again after more than two years.
Notably, the final appeal is yet to be made in front of Swiss court despite 10 years of proceedings in the case. Blatter and Platini again appeared in the court for the allegations of delayed payment of two million Swiss francs which FIFA requested in 2011 for consultancy services.
“After two acquittals, the federal prosecutor’s office must also admit that this criminal procedure has definitively failed. Michel Platini must finally be left alone in criminal matters," Michel Platini’s lawyer Dominic Nellen was quoted as saying by News18.
The criminal proceedings had personal and professional consequences for him: Michel Platini’s lawyer
Notably, the payment was Michel Platni’s consultancy fee for the work between 1998 to 2002. However, the former UEFA Chief claimed that the payment was partly deferred as FIFA didn’t have enough funds to pay him fully at that time. The scandal emerged in 2015 when Platini was serving as UEFA Chief.
“The criminal proceedings have had not only legal but also massive personal and professional consequences for Michel Platini – although no incriminating evidence was ever presented. Among other things, the criminal proceedings prevented his election as FIFA president in 2016,” Platini’s lawyer Dominic Nellen said.
