Sepp Blatter and Michel Platini to stand trial in June charged with fraud

Former FIFA president Sepp Blatter and former UEFA president Michel Platini will stand trial in June in Switzerland charged with fraud.

The pair were charged last November following a six-year investigation into a payment of two million Swiss francs arranged by Blatter to be paid to Platini back in 2011.

The trial at the Swiss Federal Criminal Court in Bellinzona is due to begin on June 8 and is listed until June 22.

The Office of the Swiss Attorney General said the payment had been made without legal basis, “damaged FIFA’s assets and unlawfully enriched Platini”.

Blatter, 86, and Platini, 66, had argued the payment had been agreed orally and in lieu of work done by Platini in an advisory capacity between 1998 and 2002.

The case which culminated in the charges issued in November last year was launched by prosecutors in 2015, effectively terminating Blatter’s FIFA presidency ahead of schedule, and leading to Platini, then president of UEFA, withdrawing from the race to be his successor.

Both faced separate FIFA ethics committee investigations and were banned from football for eight years, reduced to six on appeal.

However, Blatter is now serving a fresh suspension after being found in March of last year to be part of a “vicious circle” of officials who sought to award themselves over £50m in undeclared payments.

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