Football Politics: Sepp Blatter, Michel Platini indicted for fraud
Former FIFA officials Sepp Blatter and Michel Platini have been indicted over fraud and other offences by Swiss prosecutors, after a six-year investigation into a controversial two million dollar payment.
The case was opened in September 2015, and ousted Blatter as FIFA President ahead of schedule. It also ended then-UEFA president Platini’s campaign to succeed his former mentor. The case centers on Platini’s written request to FIFA in January 2011 to be paid back-dated additional salary for working as a presidential adviser in Blatter’s first term, from 1998 to 2002.
Blatter authorized FIFA to make the payment within weeks. The attorney general’s office has corroborated that this payment was made without a legal basis. Now 85-year-old Blatter and 66-year-old Platini, who have long denied any wrongdoing, face a trial within months at federal criminal court in Switzerland.