Former FIFA president Sepp Blatter and French football legend Michel Platini have been cleared of fraud for a second time.
The former FIFA president and former UEFA president were accused of fraud, forgery, mismanagement and misappropriation of more than $2m (£1.5m) of FIFA money in 2011.
The attorney general’s office in Switzerland had challenged a first acquittal in July 2022 and asked for sentences of 20 months, suspended for two years.
Blatter, 89, and Platini, 69, once among the most powerful figures in football, have consistently denied wrongdoing.
They were cleared of fraud at the Extraordinary Appeals Chamber of the Swiss Criminal Court in the town of Muttenz, near Basel.
Blatter approved FIFA paying 2m Swiss francs (now $2.21m) to France football great Platini in February 2011 for supplementary and non-contracted salary working as a presidential adviser from 1998 to 2002.
The Swiss federal investigation emerged in September 2015 as Platini was a strong favourite to succeed his one-time mentor in an upcoming election.
( FABRICE COFFRINI/AFP via Getty Images)
The probe kicked off events which would ultimately bring to an end the careers of Blatter and Platini.
Though federal court trials have twice cleared their names, Blatter’s reputation will likely always be tied to leading FIFA during corruption crises that took down a swath of senior football officials worldwide.
Platini, one of football’s greatest players and later Blatter’s protégé in football politics, never got the FIFA presidency he aspired to.
