Michel Platini (left), former president of the UEFA, and SEPP Blatter (der.), Former president of FIFA.
Photo: AFP – Fabrice Coffrini
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The acquittal of Michel Platini and SEPP Blatter, judged again in Switzerland in March for a case of alleged corruption, was firm. Justice determined that there was not enough evidence of the Prosecutor's Office, which definitively confirms its innocence in this process.
“The Public Ministry of the Confederation (MPC) renounces to resort”, thus accepting “the verdict issued in the first and second instance,” said the Swiss Prosecutor's Office this Thursday in a statement.
By accepting his defeat, since on two occasions he had claimed the prison sentence against the defendants without convincing the judges, the MPC ends ten years of a process with political ramifications.
“I know it was a story to prevent me from being president of FIFA,” Michel Platini had launched.
The two former leaders were accused of “obtained illegally, to the detriment of FIFA, a payment of two million Swiss francs (2.5 million dollars) in favor of Michel Platini,” according to the Prosecutor's Office.
Defense and accusation coincided at one point: the Triple Golden Ball was a SEPP Blatter advisor between 1998 and 2002, during the first term of the latter at the head of FIFA, and the two men signed in 1999 a contract that established an annual remuneration of 300,000 Swiss francs, paid entirely by FIFA.
However, in January 2011, the former Juventus midfielder-with a half in the president of UEFA (2007-2015)-“enforced a debt of two million Swiss francs”, qualified as “false invoice” by the accusation.
The two men insisted that they had agreed from the beginning an annual salary of one million Swiss francs, through a “gentlemen agreement” and without witnesses, without FIFA finances allowing payment at the time.
The output of the case in mid -2015, just after the resignation of SEPP Blatter following a scandal waterfall, took Michel Platini from the race to the presidency of FIFA, clearing the way for Gianni Infantino, at that time French right in UEFA.
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