Sepp Blatter and Michel Platini reaffirmed their innocence as two former football leaders accused of betraying FIFA were questioned on the second day of their criminal trial.
Blatter was due to testify on the first day on Wednesday, but the former FIFA president said he was suffering from chest pain and asked to respond the next morning.
“I feel much better, thank you,” Blatter, 86, said at the start of Thursday’s session at Switzerland’s Federal Criminal Court in Bellinzona.
Blatter’s 17-year rule as president ended in June 2015, when he resigned amid a corruption scandal. A few months later, federal prosecutors in Switzerland revealed their investigation into a $2 million payment from FIFA to Platini four years earlier.
The outcome of the case also ended Platini’s campaign to succeed his former mentor and removed the French great as UEFA president.
Both have long denied wrongdoing and claimed they had a verbal deal in 1998 to pay Platini one million Swiss francs if he was elected as FIFA president, as Blatter’s advisor. To serve as. That defense first failed with judges from the FIFA Ethics Committee banning him from football, and later in separate appeals to the Court of Arbitration for Sport.
Platini’s contract with FIFA, signed in August 1999, was for 300,000 Swiss francs ($312,000) annually and dates back to January. It is claimed that Blatter said he would pay the same amount as the then Secretary General of FIFA, and later promised the balance.
“In the verbal contract we did not stipulate that he would receive it, it was a contract between the men, and we immediately started work. I did not give him the exact time when he would get it,” Blatter said.
“When I was elected FIFA president, we had a bad balance. … at that time I didn’t know (when would be paid), I just had this man and he was worth this million but I didn’t know when and how he would get it.
Platini supported Blatter’s comments in his testimony. and claimed that he should have actually been paid more, but had miscalculated the discrepancy in the amount promised to him and his salary during his four years in the role of consultant.
“I made a mistake. I was convinced the salary was 500,000 and I realized it when the prosecutor showed me the contract. But FIFA knew they had cheated me.”
Platini, 66, was asked why he waited until 2011 to send FIFA an invoice for the money he allegedly owed. The bill comes shortly after FIFA paid a seven-point severance pay to former French diplomat Jerome Champagne, who was ousted as a Blatter ally.
“I trusted the president and I knew that one day he would pay me. I wouldn’t deal with him without trusting the president,” said Platini. “The money was not important to me. What was important was the word of the President of FIFA.
“I have principles. I’m not going to ask anyone for money that owed me. Just then, one day, I knew FIFA had made two big payments to employees who left. And at that point, I told myself it would be nice to remember that they owe me money.
The trial will last 11 days and the three federal judges hearing the case will deliver their verdict on July 8. Blatter and Platini each face up to five years in prison, but a suspended sentence is a possible option.
“I was in shock (when we were first interrogated) and this shock has lasted for seven years. It is still here,” Blatter said. “I have already been sentenced to seven years. It is an infinity. It seemed like time.
“So I’m glad we’re in court now to find out the truth about what happened. I’m glad we’re here and it will finally come to an end.”
Blatter and Platini declined to answer questions from FIFA lawyer Catherine Hohl-Chirazzi.
“What FIFA did to the president of FIFA and me is reprehensible, they made us cheaters, fraudsters, money launderers,” Platini said. “Just because I won’t be president.
“It’s not easy when you are known to the world for criticism, especially when you have children and grandchildren… I hope one day justice will prevail.”
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