The prosecution stressed that it would not make any further statement on this subject.
After six years of investigation and two weeks of trial for fraud in Switzerland, the French football icon, 67, and Sepp Blatter, 86, were acquitted on July 8.
They faced five years in prison and the prosecution had requested a year and eight months in prison suspended.
They appeared for having “illegally obtained, at the expense of Fifa, a payment of two million Swiss francs” (1.8 million euros) “in favor of Michel Platini”.
Defense and prosecution agreed on one point: the triple Ballon d’Or advised Sepp Blatter well between 1998 and 2002, during the latter’s first term at the head of Fifa, and the two men signed a contract in 1999 agreeing to an annual remuneration of 300,000 Swiss francs, fully paid by Fifa.
But, in January 2011, the former midfielder – who in the meantime became UEFA President (2007-2015) – “claimed a claim of two million Swiss francs”, qualified as a “false invoice” by the accusation.
The two men hammered on their side that they had from the start decided on an annual salary of one million Swiss francs, by an oral “gentlemen’s agreement” and without witnesses, without the finances of Fifa not allow immediate payment to Mr. Platini.
The French “was worth his million”, had assured Sepp Blatter to the magistrates, before Michel Platini in turn described a negotiation so little formalized that he had not specified the motto: “Me for fun, I said ‘ pesetas, liras, rubles, marks, it’s you who decides'”, told the legend of the Blues in court.
The latter considered that the fraud was “not established with a likelihood bordering on certainty”, therefore applying the general principle of criminal law according to which “the doubt must benefit the accused”.
