After six years of investigation and two weeks of trial for fraud in Switzerland, Michel Platini and the ex-president of Fifa Sepp Blatter will know their judgment on Friday, in the case which placed them on the ban of world football.
At 10:00 a.m. local time (08:00 GMT), the president of the Federal Criminal Court of Bellinzona (south-east) will seal the fate of the two former leaders. The prosecution requested in mid-June a year and eight months in prison, well below the five years of imprisonment they incur.
They plead acquittal
Implicated in other criminal cases but tried for the first time, the 67-year-old Frenchman and the 86-year-old Swiss have each pleaded acquittal, they who claim their innocence and see in this file a manipulation intended to dismiss them power.
For years, the defense has striven to bring back into the debates a possible behind-the-scenes role of Gianni Infantino, former right-hand man of Michel Platini at UEFA, then unexpectedly elected at the beginning of 2016 to the presidency of Fifa – who seemed promised to its former leader.
But if Mr. Infantino has been targeted since 2020 by a separate procedure for three secret meetings in 2016 and 2017 with the former head of the Swiss prosecution, the magistrates have never joined the two files, rendering any suspicion of conspiracy judicially irrelevant.
“Gentlemen’s Agreement”
Only will therefore count, in the judgment of the three magistrates, the “deception” reproached to the two defendants, that is to say the payment by Fifa of 2 million Swiss francs (1.8 million euros) to the ex-N.10 of the Bleus in 2011, with the support of Sepp Blatter.
Defense and prosecution agree on one point: the Frenchman advised the Swiss well between 1998 and 2002, during the latter’s first term as head of FIFA, and the two men signed a contract in 1999 agreeing to a annual remuneration of 300,000 Swiss francs, fully paid by Fifa.
But in January 2011, the former midfielder – who in the meantime became UEFA President (2007-2015) – “claimed a claim of 2 million Swiss francs”, qualified as a “false invoice” by the ‘charge.
The two men insist on their side that they had from the start decided on an annual salary of one million Swiss francs, by an oral “gentlemen’s agreement” and without witnesses, without the finances of Fifa not allow immediate payment to Mr. Platini.
The French “was worth his million”, assured Sepp Blatter to the magistrates, before Michel Platini in turn described a negotiation so little formalized that he had not specified the motto: “Me for fun, I said + pesetas, liras, rubles, marks, it’s up to you +”, said the legend of the Blues.
The Shadow of Corruption
But in his requisitions, the prosecutor Thomas Hildbrand underlined the contradiction with the 1999 contract, the contrast with the usual practices of the authority and more generally those of the world of work, and he especially unearthed audit reports of the FIFA.
Even if the Zurich organization had paid a million Swiss francs to Platini in 1999, it would still have had “more than 21 million francs in cash”, reserves rising to 327 million in 2002, recalled the magistrate.
In addition to the credibility of the different versions, on which the trial should be played, a mystery remains: that of Sepp Blatter’s possible motive for a scam which did not earn him a penny, underlined his defense.
Carefully, Thomas Hildbrand recalled the support given by Michel Platini and the UEFA executive committee to Blatter’s re-election to a fourth term at the end of May 2011.
“The question of whether this payment is in connection with the election must remain open, in the absence of convincing evidence”, acknowledged the prosecutor, nevertheless leaving the shadow of corruption hanging over the courtroom.