March 6 – Former UEFA boss Michel Platini was accused of fraud in order to scupper his chances of becoming the head of FIFA, his lawyer claimed at the Frenchman’s corruption trial.
Both Platini and former FIFA president Sepp Blatter have been in court this week in a second appeals trial, having been acquitted in July 2022 in a criminal action brought by Swiss judicial authorities.
The acquittals took place despite both having been banned from the game by FIFA, but prosecutors immediately appealed.
The not-guilty verdicts followed an 11-day trial at the Federal Criminal Court of Switzerland and centred around the so-called $2million “disloyal payment” from FIFA to Platini with Blatter’s approval in 2011, for work done a decade earlier.
Swiss prosecutors brought the case back to court this week and on the penultimate day of the hearing on Wednesday, Platini’s lawyer, Dominic Nellen, declared: “These criminal proceedings never had the goal of punishing an alleged crime. Rather, it was a means of getting Michel Platini out of the way.”
Nellen claimed prosecutors had allowed themselves to be used by FIFA to prevent Platini, a three-time European Footballer of the Year, from taking the reins in succession to Blatter, a job he had long coveted.
Blatter was eventually replaced as FIFA president by Gianni Infantino, who had worked as Platini’s number two at UEFA and owed his candidacy to the fact that Europe’s preferred candidate, Platini, ended up being banned.
It was a timely piece of opportunism and Nellen told the court: “FIFA and its boss, Gianni Infantino, did everything to ensure that the federal prosecutors’ office get Michel Platini out of the way once and for all.”
For his part, Infantino has denied helping to bring about Platini’s downfall and said he only stepped up when UEFA asked him to after allegations against Platini emerged.
Nellen insisted the two million francs at the centre of the case was back payment for consultancy work that Platini had done for Blatter from 1998 to 2002, and was to cover the difference between what he received and what had been agreed earlier between the pair.
“These proceedings have cost Michel Platini his career. It is time to finally put an end to this unworthy chapter,” Nellen argued.
The trial continues, with a verdict expected on March 25.
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