Former FIFA president Sepp Blatter returned to court this morning for the second day of his high-profile fraud trial, after his testimony was cut short yesterday due to chest pains and breathing difficulties.
Blatter and his erstwhile protégé, French footballing icon Michel Platini, appeared in Swiss Federal Criminal Court on Wednesday to face corruption charges that led to their demotion from the head of the sport.
The pair are being tried over a two million Swiss franc (£1.6 million) payment to Platini in 2011. They were were among the game’s most prominent personalities.
‘I’m not well. I have these problems that come and go,’ Blatter, sitting with his lawyer on a long bench, told judges in a voice barely louder than a whisper on Wednesday.
‘I can’t breathe well. I don’t feel capable at the moment of responding to an interrogation.’ The judges allowed him to delay his testimony to Thursday, a day later than planned. ‘I hope that I’ll feel better tomorrow,’ Blatter said.
Today, the 86-year-old Swiss – who has been suffering from long-term health issues – looked frail as he made his way through a crowd of reporters towards the Bellinzona courthouse ahead of giving his delayed testimony.
But outside the court, Blatter again presented a confident guise to the gathered press pack, which surrounded him with microphones as he arrived.
Blatter was believed to have spent time in hospital in 2021 with a non-life-threatening ailment, with his daughter noting at the time that his body was improving ‘every day.’
FIFA’s legal lawsuit against Blatter and Platini to recoup the two million francs was dismissed yesterday after lawyers for Blatter and Platini failed to move the trial to a local court or dismiss FIFA’s civil claim against Blatter and Platini.
‘This case is being heard in the wrong stadium,’ Platini’s lawyer Dominic Nellen told the court, saying federal prosecutions should be reserved for large, international cases. The judges dismissed the argument, and also allowed FIFA to remain involved.
‘It is obvious that FIFA has been damaged,’ said its lawyer Catherine Hohl-Chirazi. ‘Two million francs was stolen.’
Swiss prosecutors accuse them of having, to the detriment of FIFA, illegally obtained the payment, plus social security contributions of 229,126 francs, in favour of Platini.
The former French football great ‘submitted to FIFA in 2011 an allegedly fictitious invoice for a (alleged) debt still existing for his activity as an adviser for FIFA in the years 1998 to 2002,’ according to the court.
The case meant Blatter ended his 17-year reign as FIFA president in disgrace in 2015 and torpedoed hopes by former France midfielder Platini of succeeding him. Platini was forced to quit UEFA in 2016.
Speaking outside the courthouse yesterday, Blatter – accompanied by his daughter Corinne and his lawyer – struck a confident tone.
‘I am absolutely confident, the sun is shining, and I’m in a good mood,’ he told journalists before the hearing. ‘I know I have not done anything against the law. My life was football, for 45 years with FIFA. My life is football.’
Platini also said he was confident, and joked he would have to take course in German so he could follow the proceedings.
‘I am convinced that justice will be fully and definitively done to me after so many years of wild accusations and slander,’ he said in statement before the trial began. ‘We will prove in court that I acted with the utmost honesty, that the payment of the remaining salary was due to me by FIFA and is perfectly legal.’
Three judges will hear the case in the trial which runs until June 22. A verdict is due on July 8. If convicted, Platini and Blatter face up to five years in jail.
The on-going court case is one of 25 investigations by the Swiss Office of the Attorney General (OAG) into corruption in football, with some 12 still pending. The United States’ Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has also investigated corruption in the game.
Following a mammoth six-year investigation that began in 2015, the OAG accused Blatter of ‘fraud, in the alternative of misappropriation, in the further alternative of criminal mismanagement as well as of forgery of a document’.
Platini is accused of fraud, misappropriation, participating in criminal mismanagement as an accomplice, and forgery of a document.
Blatter and Platini, who were once close associates but are now bitter enemies, have both denied wrongdoing. They say they had a verbal agreement over the payment, which related to consultancy work by Platini between 1998 and 2002.
The pair were banned from the sport at the very moment when Platini seemed ideally-placed to succeed Blatter at the helm of world football’s governing body.
The two allies became rivals as Platini grew impatient to take over, while Blatter’s tenure was brought to a swift end by a separate 2015 FIFA corruption scandal investigated by the FBI.
In the Bellinzona trial, the defence and the prosecution agree on one point: Platini was employed as an adviser to Blatter between 1998 and 2002. They signed a contract in 1999 for an annual remuneration of 300,000 francs.
‘The compensation agreed in accordance with this contract was invoiced by Platini on each occasion and paid in full by FIFA,’ said the OAG.
However, more than eight years after the end of his advisory role, the former France captain ‘demanded a payment in the amount of two million francs’, the OAG alleged.
‘With Blatter’s involvement, FIFA made a payment to Platini in said amount at the beginning of 2011. The evidence gathered by the OAG has corroborated that this payment to Platini was made without a legal basis. This payment damaged FIFA’s assets and unlawfully enriched Platini,’ the federal prosecution alleges.
The men insist that they had verbally agreed to a one-million-franc annual salary from the start.
The judges will have to consider the defendants’ relationship, their increasing rivalry, and their eventual expulsion from global football – while also distinguishing it from the alleged crimes at the heart of the case.
‘This case goes back to an event in 2011. It is an administrative matter, a salary payment that was owed,’ Blatter said ahead of the trial. ‘The matter was correctly declared as a salary payment, accounted for accordingly and approved by all the relevant bodies of FIFA.’
Platini said: ‘I approach this hearing with serenity and confidence. I am convinced that justice will be fully and definitively done to me after so many years of wild accusations and slander.
‘We will prove in court that I acted with the utmost honesty, that the payment of the remaining salary was due to me by FIFA and is perfectly legal.’
In a statement to AFP news agency, Platini said: ‘It is outstanding salary, owed by FIFA, under oral contract and paid under conditions of the most perfect legality. Nothing else! I acted, as in all my life and career, with the utmost honesty.’
FIFA’s Ethics Committee banned Blatter and Platini from football in 2015, initially for eight years, although this was later reduced.
The committee said the transaction, made when Blatter was seeking re-election, lacked transparency and presented a conflict of interest. When Blatter approved the payment, he was campaigning for re-election against Mohamed bin Hammam of Qatar.
Platini, as president of European soccer association UEFA, was seen as having sway with European members who could influence the vote.
The OAG said its investigation revealed that Platini worked as a consultant between 1998-2002 and that an annual compensation of 300,000 Swiss francs was contractually agreed.
Platini’s invoice had been paid in full but the former France international later demanded further salary payments of two million francs, it said.
Platini, who captained France to victory in the 1984 European Championships, was forced to quit UEFA in 2016 after losing his appeal against his ban. He also lost his appeal at the European Court of Human Rights.
The three-time European footballer of the year had been favourite to replace Blatter after the Swiss administrator quit in the wake of the huge corruption scandal which engulfed FIFA in 2015. Instead, Platini’s former general secretary at UEFA, Gianni Infantino, entered the FIFA race and won the election in 2016.
In November 2017, American goalkeeper Hope Solo accused Blatter of sexual assault at the 2013 FIFA Ballon d’Or awards, moments before she took to the stage to present an award.
She told Portuguese newspaper Expresso that she ‘had Sepp Blatter grab my a**.’ She said she ‘was in shock and completely thrown off.
‘I had to quickly pull myself together to present my team-mate with the biggest award of her career and celebrate with her in that moment, so I completely shifted my focus to Abby [Wambach].’
Blatter’s spokesman Thomas Renggli dismissed the allegation as ‘ridiculous.’