Platini and Blatter cleared for good in Switzerland | OneFootball

The acquittal of Michel Platini and Sepp Blatter, who were retried in Switzerland in March for a case of alleged corruption that ended the French ex-player's dream of presiding over the Fifa, is now final due to lack of evidence.

"The Public Prosecutor's Office of the Confederation (MPC) gives up on appealing, thus accepting the verdict issued in the first and second instances," the Swiss Prosecution announced this Thursday (28) in a statement.

End of a decade-long process

By accepting defeat, as on two occasions it had requested a suspended prison sentence against the accused without convincing the judges, the MPC closes 10 years of a process with political ramifications.

"I know it was a story to prevent me from being president of Fifa," declared Michel Platini.

Details of the accusation

The two former executives were accused of "illegally obtaining, to the detriment of Fifa, a payment of 2 million Swiss francs (2.5 million dollars or 13.6 million reais) in favor of Michel Platini," according to the Prosecution.

Defense and prosecution agreed on one point: the three-time Ballon d'Or winner was an advisor to Sepp Blatter between 1998 and 2002, during the latter's first term at the helm of Fifa, and the two men signed a contract in 1999 that established an annual remuneration of 300,000 Swiss francs (2.03 million reais), fully paid by Fifa.

But in January 2011, the former Juventus player - who was president of Uefa (2007-2015) - claimed a "debt of 2 million Swiss francs", qualified as a "fake invoice" by the prosecution.

"Gentlemen's Agreement"

The two men insisted that they had agreed from the beginning an annual salary of 1 million Swiss francs (6.76 million reais), through a "gentlemen's agreement" and without witnesses, without Fifa's finances allowing the payment at the time.

The revelation of the case in mid-2015, shortly after the fall of Sepp Blatter due to a series of scandals, pushed Michel Platini out of the race for the presidency of Fifa, paving the way for Gianni Infantino, at the time the Frenchman's right-hand man in Uefa.

This article was translated into English by Artificial Intelligence. You can read the original version in 🇧🇷 here.