Former FIFA president and ex-UEFA president Sepp Blatter and Michel Platini have been cleared of corruption charges by a Swiss court.
Two and a half years after they were first acquitted of the offences, Blatter and Platini were cleared of fraud by the extraordinary appeals chamber of the Swiss Criminal Court.
The case related to a 2 million Swiss franc (£1.75m) payment Blatter authorised for Platini in 2011.
The payment was a consultancy fee paid to Platini for work carried out between 1998 and 2002, which the Frenchman said had been partly deferred because FIFA lacked the funds to pay him in full immediately.
The scandal, which emerged in 2015 when Platini was president of UEFA, ended his hopes of succeeding Blatter, who was forced out of FIFA over the affair.
“After two acquittals, even the Office of the Attorney General of Switzerland must realise that these criminal proceedings have definitively failed. Michel Platini must finally be left in peace in criminal matters,” Platini’s lawyer, Dominic Nellen, said in a statement.
“The criminal proceedings have had not only legal but also massive personal and professional consequences for Michel Platini – although no incriminating evidence was ever presented. Among other things, the criminal proceedings prevented his election as FIFA president in 2016.”
A further appeal to the Swiss supreme court can be filed by prosecutors.
Additional reporting: Reuters
