FIFA update: Blatter, Platini cleared of corruption, fraud charges

Bern: Former FIFA President Sepp Blatter and French footballing legend Michel Platini were both cleared of corruption charges by a Swiss court on Friday, Khaleej Times reported.
Blatter, who led FIFA for 17 years, was cleared of the charges of fraud by the Federal Criminal Court in the southern city of Bellinzona, along with Platini, who is a former France national team captain and manager.
The two, once among the most powerful figures in global soccer, have consistently denied the charges levelled against them.
Prosecutors had accused Blatter, and Platini of unlawfully arranging for FIFA to pay the Frenchman two million Swiss francs ($2.06 million) in 2011.
The case forced Blatter to end his reign as FIFA president in disgrace and it wrecked Platini’s hopes of succeeding him after he was banned from football when the affair came to light.
Blatter, 86, had said the two-million-franc payment followed a “gentlemen’s agreement” between the pair when he asked Platini to be his technical adviser in 1998.
Platini, 67, worked as a consultant between 1998 and 2002 with an annual salary of 300,000 Swiss francs — the most FIFA could afford because of money troubles the organization had at the time, Blatter has told the court.
The rest of Platini’s one million per year salary was to be settled at a later date, Blatter said.
The senior judge, Josephine Contu Albrizio, said a verbal agreement between Blatter and Platini seemed credible, as did the Frenchman’s seeing his market value at 1 million per year due to his status in the game.
It also seemed implausible that Platini would have worked only on the basis of written contract that paid him such a paltry sum, the judge told the court. (UNI)