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PROBE OF BLATTER AND PLATINI MOVES TO FRAUD ACCUSATION

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Former FIFA president Sepp Blatter and ex-UEFA chief Michel Platini are now being investigated for “fraud” and “breach of trust” in Switzerland, a source with access to the probe said on Friday (Nov 27).

The former power brokers of world football were originally part of a legal procedure opened in 2015 over a 2011 payment to Platini of two million Swiss francs (S$2.96 million).

The Swiss prosecutors have decided to change the focus of their investigation, the same source said.

Former Juventus and France midfielder Platini received the payment from FIFA for advisory work completed in 2002. The 65-year-old later became chairman of the FIFA technical and development committee, while also being vice-president of the French Football Federation.

Prosecutors are investigating on suspicion of “complicity in unfair management, embezzlement and forgery”.

The Swiss Public Ministry of the Confederation (MPC) in Bern has the power to use further legal manoeuvres to call for the sum to be paid.

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Platini’s entourage told AFP on Friday the Swiss prosecutors were “maintaining this five-year-old case artificially by widening the accusations”.

FIFA deemed the amount authorised by Blatter a “disloyal payment” and suspended him and Platini from all football-related activities, which prevented the former European football chief from running for another term as president in 2016.

In a statement to AFP on Friday, the 84-year-old Swiss said: “I have done nothing wrong in making back payments based on a joint agreement.”

He was removed from office in 2015 after 17 years at the helm of FIFA.

Football’s world governing body has been rocked by a number of scandals over the last decade.

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In October, former FIFA No. 2 Jerome Valcke was handed a suspended 120-day sentence and fined €1.65 million (S$2.64 million) by a Swiss court over the allocation of World Cup TV rights.

It was the first judgment handed down in Switzerland, the seat of most international sports organisations, in the 20 or so proceedings opened in the last five years involving FIFA.

Two former Latin American football leaders have been jailed in the United States over their role in corruption.

-AFP

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Kunle Solaja is the author of landmark books on sports and journalism as well as being a multiple award-winning journalist and editor of long standing. He is easily Nigeria’s foremost soccer diarist and Africa's most capped FIFA World Cup journalist, having attended all FIFA World Cup finals from Italia ’90 to Qatar 2022. He was honoured at the Qatar 2022 World Cup by FIFA and AIPS.

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