Sepp Blatter and Michel Platini have been found not guilty of fraud at Switzerland’s Federal Court following a two-week trial centred on a £1.6m payment made to the latter in 2011.
The former heads of FIFA and UEFA learnt of their fate via a verdict announced on Friday morning by the three judges who presided over last month’s trial. Despite being cleared, Blatter, 86, remains banned from football until 2028 for a different punishment in 2021. Platini, 67, has served his ban.
The Swiss Office of the Attorney General (OAG) had accused Blatter and Platini of "fraud, in the alternative of misappropriation, in the further alternative of criminal mismanagement as well as of forgery of a document."
