BELLINZONA, Switzerland: The Swiss prosecutor’s office on Wednesday demanded a 20-month suspended jail sentence for Michel Platini and ex-president of FIFA Sepp Blatter, accusing them of defrauding football’s governing body.
Blatter and Platini are being tried over a two-million-Swiss-franc ($2 million) payment in 2011 to the former France captain, who by that time was in charge of European football’s governing body UEFA.
The prosecutor’s demand is more lenient than he could have asked for — a maximum of five years in prison if found guilty.
“Only their behavior with regard to criminal law counts,” said prosecutor Thomas Hildbrand, leaving out any link to football politics.
The prosecution accuses Blatter of having signed off an invoice for two million Swiss francs presented to FIFA by Platini in 2011, almost nine years after the end of his work as Blatter’s adviser.
Giving evidence at the start of the trial last week, Blatter said he had struck a “gentleman’s agreement” with Platini to pay him the money.
Platini was employed as an adviser to Blatter between 1998 and 2002. They signed a contract in 1999 for an annual remuneration of 300,000 Swiss francs, which was paid in full by FIFA.
But they claimed that they had agreed to pay an additional 700,000 annual francs when the finances of the organization would allow it.
Hence Platini presented an invoice for two million Swiss francs at the beginning of 2011, signed by Sepp Blatter and presented to FIFA as an outstanding part of the salary.
Hildbrand said on Wednesday in his four-and-a-half hour discourse that agreeing on such a sum without a written record, without witnesses and without provisioning it in the accounts was “contrary to commercial practices” as well as the habits of FIFA.
He also dismissed the claim the signed invoice was for back pay arguing that FIFA’s finances were healthy enough in 1999 — it “would have had more than 21 million francs in reserves” and which had ballooned to 327 million in 2002.
Hildbrand said there was no reason for the delay, adding that Blatter “had perfect knowledge” of FIFA’s solvency.
“When a chameleon feels threatened, it changes color: Blatter does the same thing,” said Hildbrand.
The trial follows an investigation that began in 2015 and lasted six years.
The case is due to run until June 22 with both FIFA — a civil party in the trial — and the defense both due to lay out their closing arguments.
The Federal Criminal Court of Bellinzona will deliver its decision on July 8.
Platini, 66, is regarded among world football’s greatest-ever players. He won the Ballon d’Or, considered the most prestigious individual award, three times in the mid-1980s.
Blatter, now 86, joined FIFA in 1975 and became the president of world football’s governing body in 1998.
Prosecutor calls for suspended sentence for Blatter, Platini
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Prosecutor calls for suspended sentence for Blatter, Platini
- Blatter and Platini are being tried over a two-million-Swiss-franc ($2 million) payment in 2011
- The prosecutor's demand is more lenient than he could have asked for -- a maximum of five years in prison if found guilty
Aston Martin says its car risks giving drivers ‘nerve damage’ and can’t finish F1 season-opener
- Aston Martin has predicted it is unlikely to finish Formula 1’s season-opening Australian Grand Prix without its drivers risking suffering permanent nerve damage
MELBOURNE: Aston Martin has predicted it is unlikely to finish Formula 1’s season-opening Australian Grand Prix on Sunday without its drivers risking suffering permanent nerve damage.
Adrian Newey, the F1 car design great who’s heading into his first race as Aston Martin’s team principal, said Thursday the team’s Honda power unit causes vibrations which could damage the hands of drivers Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll. Neither will likely be able to tolerate even half of the 58-lap race distance, Newey added.
Aston Martin had a poor preseason, often slower even than new team Cadillac and it logged the fewest laps of all 11 teams.
“That vibration (transmitted from Honda’s power unit) into the chassis is causing a few reliability problems,” said Newey.
“Mirrors falling off the air, tail lights falling off, that sort of thing, which we are having to address. But, the much more significant problem with that is that that vibration is transmitted ultimately into the driver’s fingers.
“So Fernando is of the feeling that he can’t do more than 25 laps consecutively before he will risk permanent nerve damage into his hands. Lance is of the opinion that he can’t do more than 15 laps before that threshold.
“We are going to have to be very heavily restricted on how many laps we do in the race until we get on top of the source of the vibration — and to improve the vibration at source.”
Despite the long list of issues, Newey says the AMR26 car has tremendous potential as F1 starts a new era of regulations.
He argued the chassis is F1’s fifth-best behind the expected top-teams Mercedes, Ferrari, McLaren and Red Bull and that, following an aggressive development program, has the potential to run at the front at some point in 2026.
Alonso, though, is keeping the faith until Friday practice in Melbourne, where he believes fixes on the car might provide a sunnier outlook.
“For us, it’s just vibrating everything,” the two-time F1 champion said.
“But it’s not only for us. The car is struggling a little bit, so that’s why we have some issues, some reliability problems that made our days slightly short.
“Since (pre-season testing in) Bahrain, there were a couple of tests done and some of the solutions are implemented on the car now, so (I’m) curious to see what (happens) tomorrow (and) if we can improve.”
Its disappointing performance has been variously attributed to a compressed design time due to late arrival; Honda’s need to rebuild its research and development capabilities after leaving Red Bull, the challenge of producing a new in-house gearbox, and the team running a so-far unproven fuels partner in Aramco.
But it’s the side effects that will likely sideline its cars early in Sunday’s race at Albert Park.
