Today's Edition
Geneva (dpa)
Former top football officials Joseph Blatter and Michel Platini have again been acquitted of fraud, a Swiss court said on Tuesday.
Swiss administrator Blatter, commonly known as Sepp, was president of world football's governing body FIFA from 1998 to 2015 while former France player Platini headed European body UEFA 2007-2015.
The duo have been acquitted over a 2 million Swiss franc ($2.2 million) payment from Blatter to Platini, which they say they agreed in the 1990s for consultancy work but was only paid in 2011.
Prosecutors had said it was a sort of bribe and wanted suspended prison sentences of one year and eight months for both men. The allegation already led to the end of their careers in sports administration.
The pair were previously acquitted of fraud in a Bellinzona court over the same payment in 2022, but prosecutors appealed.
Now a court in Muttenz near Basel has agreed with the original not guilty verdicts.
Both Blatter, 89, and Platini, 69, had expressed their confidence of being acquitted again ahead of and during the new trial.
Platini, a 1984 European champion, has consistently said that FIFA lacked the money to pay him as agreed in the late 1990s and that when FIFA's finances looked rosier, he re-asserted his claim for payment.
The legal proceedings have been in Switzerland as FIFA is based there.
Whether the pair will now seek recompense from FIFA after being found guilty by sporting bodies of ethics violations linked to the payment remains to be seen.
In 2015, the duo were banned from sports administration until 2023 - although the suspensions were reduced during appeals.
