Blatter, Platini face 20-month suspended jail sentences

GENEVA –

Prosecutors in fraud trial against former FIFA president Sepp Blatter, and vice president Michel Platini, asked Wednesday for 20-month suspended sentences for both men.

Blatter and Platini, a former captain of France’s national soccer team, were sentenced for up to five years each for financial wrongdoing. However, actual jail time was not likely before their 11-day trial. Verdicts are expected to be delivered on July 8.

The legal peril for Blatter, 86, grew Wednesday when Zurich prosecutors confirmed to The Associated Press that they had opened criminal proceedings against Blatter in a separate complaint that was filed by FIFA’s world body in 2020.

Blatter and Jerome Valcke, his longtime right-handman, are now being investigated for alleged mismanagement of the FIFA World Football Museum project. A Swiss financial news site first reported the details.

Thomas Hildbrand, a Swiss federal criminal judge in Bellinzona asked the three Platini judges to pay FIFA more that 2.2 million Swiss francs ($2.2million) in compensation earlier Wednesday.

Blatter, Platini and others deny fraud and lesser accusations in connection to a FIFA approved $2 million payment to France great in 2011. Platini, at the time, was UEFA president and a FIFA vice-president. He was likely to succeed Blatter in 2015.

Platini saidIn a statement released after the court session, he stated that he was “serene” and “confident.”

Platini stated that “the indictment of prosecutor today lacks any basis.” said. “The trial debates proved that this criminal procedure was not justified.”

The prosecution claimed that FIFA had no legal or contractual basis to pay Platini for his work as a presidential adviser during Blatter’s first term 1998-2002. Zurich, FIFA also paid $229,000 in social safety taxes.

Both men have denied wrongdoing for years and claim that they made a verbal agreement in 1998 to pay Platini an additional salary. FIFA was unable to pay this amount at the time. Platini signed a contract for 300,000 Swiss francs ($300,000.) annually in August 1999.

Their defense had failed at the FIFA Ethics Committee, which banned them form soccer and removed them as an officeholder. The FIFA appeals committee followed and then in separate appeals at Court of Arbitration for Sport.

Blatter saidFIFA had properly accounted for the money, and Platini claims that the allegation was brought to his attention in September 2015 to prevent him from running to become FIFA president.

Blatter, who was the victim of a massive corruption investigation in America, announced his intention to resign as president as soon as possible in June 2015. Platini’s payment was investigated in a separate but related case by Swiss prosecutors.

Last week, Blatter and Platini both testified. Both are expected to make closing statements on June 22.

Two federal criminal proceedings against Blatter and Valcke are currently ongoing.

FIFA asked Zurich prosecutors for an investigation into the $140 million renovation of a Zurich downtown building to house a museum that Blatter had long considered a personal project. It opened in 2016. The loss-making museum is linked to a long-term FIFA rental of apartments/offices on the site, which is owned by Swiss Life.

Lawyers for Blatter said18 months ago, the museum claims were “baseless” and were vehemently rejected.

Hildbrand is also being investigated by federal prosecutors. They are looking into a FIFA loan of $1million in 2010 to the Trinidad and Tobago soccer association. The suspects include Blatter, Valcke, and Markus Kattner (ex-FIFA finance director), who testified in court Tuesday regarding the Platini payment.

The loan was eventually canceled and Jack Warner, then a FIFA vice-president, was gifted soccer money weeks before he was elected to the general election in the Caribbean islands. Warner became a minister in government.

Valcke is also awaiting a Bellinzona Federal Appeal Court verdict. He was retried in March on charges connected to the use of a villa in Sardinia owned by Qatari and World Cup broadcast rights. The trio of defendants includes Nasser al-Khelaifi (soccer and broadcast executive) and Paris Saint-Germain’s president, Paris Saint-Germain.