Sepp Blatter has warned the football world “you will hear from us again” after the disgraced former Fifa president and his old Uefa counterpart Michel Platini were acquitted of fraud charges by a Swiss court.
A judge said the pair’s account of a ‘gentlemen’s agreement’ for Fifa to pay Platini 2 million Swiss francs (£1.7m) for consulting work in 2011 was credible, and serious doubts existed about the prosecution’s allegation it was a fraudulent payment.
As a result Blatter, who led Fifa for 17 years, was cleared of fraud by the Federal Criminal Court in the southern city of Bellinzona. Platini, a former France national team captain and manager, was also acquitted of fraud.
Swiss federal prosecutors said they would examine the written verdict before deciding whether to appeal.
Tweeting on Friday for the first time since the trial concluded, Blatter wrote: “Hello my friends, I’m back , still going strong, seven years of lies have ended. Now the game is again in the right direction. Or as Michel Platini puts it: You will hear from us again. I wish you a great weekend,” before hashtagging a raft of football’s major governing bodies.
Blatter and Platini, who were the two most powerful men in football at the height of their reigns at Fifa and Uefa respectively, remain banned from football after their explanation for the payment was rejected by judges on Fifa’s ethics committee, a decision later upheld by the Court of Arbitration for Sport.
Blatter, 86, is also facing a separate criminal case relating to a $1m payment by Fifa to the Trinidad and Tobago Football Association in 2010, for which he also denies wrongdoing.
Speaking outside court last week, Blatter reacted to the verdict saying: “I’m not speaking about Fifa, I’m not speaking about corruption, I’m speaking about me. I have done nothing wrong. I am clean with my conscience, I am clean in my spirit.”
Platini vowed to go after the “culprits” who instigated the case.
“I wanted to express my happiness for all my loved ones that justice has finally been done after seven years of lies and manipulation,” he said. “The truth has come to light during this trial.
“Believe me, going from being a legend of world soccer to a devil is very difficult, especially when it comes to you in a totally unfair way. I kept saying it – my fight is a fight against injustice. I won the first game. In this case, there are culprits who did not appear during this trial. Let them count on me, we will meet again because I will not give up and I will go all the way in my quest for truth.”
Prosecutors had accused Swiss national Blatter and Platini of unlawfully arranging for Fifa to pay the Frenchman two million Swiss francs ($2.05m, £1.72m) in 2011.
The case meant Blatter ended his reign as Fifa president in disgrace and it wrecked Platini’s hopes of succeeding him after he was banned from football when the affair came to light.
Blatter had said the two-million franc payment followed a “gentlemen’s agreement” between the pair when he asked Platini to be his technical adviser in 1998.
Platini, worked as a consultant between 1998 and 2002 with an annual salary of 300,000 Swiss francs -- with the salary being topped up to 1 million per year later.
The senior judge, Josephine Contu Albrizio, said a verbal agreement between Blatter and Platini seemed credible, as did the Frenchman’s seeing his market value at 1 million per year due to his status in the game.
It also seemed implausible that Platini would have worked only on the basis of written contract that paid him such a paltry sum, the judge told the court.
It was also credible that Platini sought the extra pay only in 2010 as he did not need the money immediately, she said.
The payment emerged following a huge investigation launched by the U.S. Department of Justice into bribery, fraud and money-laundering at Fifa in 2015, which triggered Blatter‘s resignation.
Additional reporting by Reuters
