FEELING HEAT: Fifa president Joseph ‘Sepp’ Blatter reacts as banknotes thrown by British comedian Simon Brodkin flutter through the air during a press conference following an extraordinary Fifa executive committee meeting at Fifa headquarters in Zurich PHOTOGRAPH: EPA
Michel Platini also drawn into scandal as payment probed
THE Fifa scandal yesterday engulfed Sepp Blatter and Michel Platini, the two most powerful figures in world football, with Swiss prosecutors investigating whether a $2-million (R27-million) payment from Blatter to the French legend was illegal.
Swiss investigators opened criminal proceedings against Fifa president Blatter and searched his office as they quizzed his Uefa (Union of European Football Associations) counterpart, Platini.
A statement from Switzerland’s attorney general’s office said criminal proceedings against Blatter had been opened “on suspicion of criminal mismanagement . . . and alternatively misappropriation”.
After corruption scandals involving other top Fifa officials, Blatter, 79, had announced he would step down as president, and Platini had been the favourite to win an election to succeed him in February.
Swiss prosecutors said “the defendant Joseph Blatter” had been questioned and “the office of the Fifa president has been searched and data seized”. Blatter was questioned as “a suspect”. Platini had been questioned “as a person called upon to give information”.
Platini, 60, has been head of Uefa since 2007, which made him an automatic Fifa vice-president.
Blatter’s lawyer, Richard Cullen, said Blatter was cooperating with Swiss authorities and that a review of the evidence would show no mismanagement had occurred.
The attorney general’s office said Blatter “is suspected of making a disloyal payment of $2.04million to Michel Platini . . . at the expense of Fifa”. The alleged payment was made in February 2011 “for work performed between January 1999 and June 2002”.
Later yesterday, Platini insisted the payment had been for contractual work he had carried out.
Yesterday’s dramatic turn of events came after a press conference that Blatter was scheduled to give was cancelled.
Platini, a former Blatter ally, had turned against Blatter over the past 18 months ago as Fifa’s troubles mounted.
Blatter’s links with Jack Warner, a former Fifa vice-president now at the centre of a US investigation, are also being probed.
The attorney general said Blatter was suspected of making a deal unfavourable to Fifa with the Caribbean Football Union, which Warner used as his power base.
A Trinidad court announced yesterday it would rule on December 2 on whether Warner should be extradited to the US.
Fifa suspended Blatter’s right-hand man, Jerome Valcke, this month after he was accused of being involved in a deal to sell tickets for the 2014 World Cup at inflated prices. Valcke is also under suspicion over what he knew about a $10-million (R139-million) payment from the South African Football Association to an account controlled by Warner through Fifa in 2008.
US prosecutors say it was a bribe intended to get Caribbean support for South Africa’s bid for the 2010 World Cup.
Swiss prosecutors are also looking into Fifa’s awarding of the 2018 and 2022 World Cups to Russia and Qatar, respectively.
US attorney general Loretta Lynch made it clear this month that her department’s inquiry was growing and more major charges could be expected.
– AFP
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