Former FIFA president Joseph Blatter and former UEFA president Michel Platini acquitted of corruption

Joseph Blatter, former FIFA president who resigned in 2015 amid the corruption scandals, has been cleared of charges regarding a case of fraud over a payment of 2 million Swiss francs (€2m, £1.6m) Blatter made to former footballer and at the time UEFA president Michel Platini in 2011. Both men were acquitted in 2022, but the verdict was appealed by Swiss federal prosecutors. They have been cleared again.

This case was investigated by Swiss prosecutors, suspecting that Blatter had forged a fraudulent payment that had "no legal basis". The defendants said that the money was a belated payment for the work Michel Platini - three times Ballon d'Or between 1983 and 1985 - had done for FIFA as an adviser between 1999 and 2002. The Swiss federal court has said that it was a "gentlemen's agreement".

The investigation was launched in 2015, shortly after the scandal that shocked FIFA to the grounds, which ended in 11 FIFA officials from CONMEBOL and CONCACAF pleading guilty of corruption and fraud, that included a dramatic raid on FIFA's offices in Zurich. Blatter was not charged in that scandal, but resigned, and with him Platini's hopes of succeeding him as FIFA president also went away.