Michel Platini and former FIFA president Sepp Blatter have been acquitted again on appeal by Swiss courts in the fraud case that in 2015 destroyed the Frenchman's ambitions to become the leader of world football.
As in the first instance, in 2022, the Extraordinary Court of Appeal of the Federal Criminal Court, convened in Muttenz, rejected the requests of the Public Prosecutor's Office, which at the beginning of March had requested 20 months of suspended detention for each of the defendants.
The investigation into the so-called "Fifa-Gate" lasted almost ten years, in which, in addition to Blatter, former footballer and UEFA president Michel Platini was also accused. A history of "suspicious" payments that effectively excluded them from the main positions in world football.
On 8 October 2015, following an investigation by the Swiss judiciary, the FIFA Ethics Committee suspended Platini for 90 days. The charge relates to the illegal receipt, in 2011, of two million Swiss francs from then-president Sepp Blatter as compensation for consultancy work carried out between 1999 and 2002.
During this period, his functions within UEFA were temporarily entrusted to Vice-President Ángel María.
On 21 December 2017, FIFA banned him from all football-related activities for eight years, a sentence that was later reduced to six years. Following an appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport in Lausanne, the ban was further reduced to four years on 9 May 2016. However, after the charges were not dropped as expected, Platini announced his intention to resign as UEFA president on the same day.
On May 25, 2018, the Swiss justice system acquitted him of all charges, finding no wrongdoing in his actions. At the time, his entourage emphasized that the charges brought against him were aimed exclusively at compromising his managerial career.
On 8 July 2022, the Federal Criminal Court in Bellinzona acquitted Platini and Blatter of the FIFA fraud charge, awarding them compensation for the entire trial, compensation which Platini decided to waive. (A2 Televizion)
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