In 2015 the investigation had reset the leaders of Zurich, now the Swiss court acquit all. The former UEFA president: “Perspecting to prevent me from leading world football”
Michel Platini And Albeit blatter They were acquitted on appeal by the Swiss Court, causing the accusations of fraud that in 2015 led to the clash of the FIFA top management and erased the possibilities of the former number one of the UEFA to become the head of world football. Ten years have passed since those days and now the procedural story tells a different story: there were no corruption and fraud, the first instance sentence issued in 2022. The extraordinary Court of Appeal of the Federal Criminal Court, which met in Muttenz (North-West), did not welcome the requests of the Prosecutor, who at the beginning of March had asked for 20 months of detention with conditional suspension for each of the accused.
A verdict without shadows. “The persecution of Fifa and some Swiss prosecutors of the last 10 years is completely finished” commented Michel Platini: “The story is very simple: I was prevented from becoming president of Fifa”. He who, as president of UEFA, had planned to become a number one of Fifa and would have been the certain successor of Blatter who, at the time of the scandal, had just been re -elected only to be forced in a few days to resign.
The acquittal on appeal decided in Mutenz does not definitively close the process. The Prosecutor may in fact be able to submit a last request in the Court of Cassation at the Swiss Federal Court, but the procedure provides that it can only take place for limited legal reasons. In short, the weight of the double sentence of first and second instance is remarkable and allows you to reread the recent history of the most important institution of world football ten years after the explosion of the ‘fifagate’. Although Blatter, whose was held 17 years from 1998 to 2015 – a period during which it was also a member of the IOC becoming one of the most powerful sports managers on the planet – is today an almost ninety year old without any ambition to promise to the scene.
The situation of Michel Platini, born in 1955, was different, who in 2015 was in the plan of a managerial career on the rise. President of UEFA, a springboard towards FIFA, after being an extraordinary footballer (three gold balls, a European with France and various trophies at the club level) and then a selector of the French national team from 1988 to 1992 in the second of its three lives. “My honor is back” has claimed forcefully, “but now I am too old for new responsibilities. The ten years of persecutions towards FIFA and some Swiss federal prosecutors are now finished. Nobody in France believed that I was responsible for nothing. I know the story from the beginning and I know that it was a conspiracy to prevent me from becoming president of FIFA. I know that for my enemies the time was important. Time.
The Roi and Blatter had to appear again in front of the judges to respond to the accusation of having paid (Blatter) and obtained (Platini) illegally a sum of 2 million Swiss francs (1.8 million euros) freeing the FIFA. The former French national team had been a consultant to the president of Fifa between 1998 and 2002, during the latter’s first term, with a contract in 1999 to agreed a compensation of 300,000 Swiss francs per year. In January 2011, the former footballer, meanwhile who became president of UEFA, had claimed compensation of 2 million Swiss francs under which, according to the accusation, there was a false invoice. Thesis rejected by the accused, for whom it was only the final act of a verbal agreement, never formalized, by one million Swiss francs per year.
