Fifa Sues Blatter, Platini for $2 Million Over Payment
Fifa Sues Blatter, Platini for $2 Million Over ‘Undue Payment’
(Bloomberg) --
Soccer’s top governing body sued its former president Sepp Blatter and Michel Platini, the ex-chief of Europe’s soccer federation, to reclaim 2 million Swiss francs ($2.04 million) in improper payments.
Blatter shot back in a statement, saying if anything Fifa “should actually sue itself.”
Fifa filed claims in relevant Swiss courts to seek the money after its governance committee decided it was “duty-bound to try to recover the funds illicitly” paid by Blatter to Platini, the sports body said in a statement on Monday. Any money recovered will be channeled back into soccer development, it said.
Fifa in 2016 banned both men from any soccer-related events for six years following investigations into how Blatter, who ran the organization for nearly two decades, paid the cash to former French national team star Platini.
Blatter and Platini have previously denied wrongdoing, saying the payment fulfilled a verbal contract between the pair for services Frenchman provided to Fifa from 1998 to 2002. A lawyer for Platini wasn’t immediately available for comment.
The payment was approved by Fifa’s internal and external control bodies and was accordingly part of financial statements that were approved by the organization, Blatter said in the statement.
Fifa backed up its legal filing by citing Switzerland’s supreme court which had ruled the 2 million francs as “undue payment.”
To contact the reporter on this story: Hugo Miller in Geneva at hugomiller@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Anthony Aarons at aaarons@bloomberg.net, Peter Chapman
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