Former FIFA president Sepp Blatter and former UEFA president Michel Platini have been acquitted of corruption charges by a Swiss court, marking the end of a legal battle that lasted nearly a decade.
The Extraordinary Appeals Chamber of the Swiss Criminal Court in Muttenz, near Basel, dismissed the appeal by Swiss federal prosecutors, upholding their 2022 acquittal by a lower court.
The case revolved around a 2 million Swiss franc ($2.26 million) payment authorized by Blatter to Platini in 2011, allegedly for consultancy work carried out between 1998 and 2002. Platini insisted that part of the payment was deferred due to FIFA’s financial constraints at the time. Despite both men denying any wrongdoing, the scandal led to Platini’s downfall as UEFA president and ended his ambitions to succeed Blatter as FIFA’s leader.
Following the verdict, Platini’s lawyer, Dominic Nellen, welcomed the ruling, stating: “After two acquittals, even the Office of the Attorney General of Switzerland must realize that these criminal proceedings have definitively failed.”
This decision comes nine and a half years after Swiss authorities launched a federal investigation in September 2015, setting off a chain of events that ultimately brought down two of football’s most influential figures.
