Sepp Blatter is greeted by Michel Platini, right
Evidence has been seized in a search at the French soccer federation headquarters for a criminal case against former FIFA president Sepp Blatter, Swiss federal prosecutors said yesterday.
The office of Switzerland’s attorney general said the governing body for French soccer consented to the search carried out Tuesday, at offices near the Eiffel Tower in central Paris, with the cooperation of the French Financial Prosecution Office.
The raid is the first reported action outside Switzerland in a criminal proceeding opened against Blatter last September for suspected financial mismanagement and misappropriation of FIFA money. Blatter turns 80 today.
It focuses on a USD 2 million payment Blatter approved from FIFA funds for Michel Platini in 2011. The previously secret transaction wrecked the former France great’s bid to become FIFA president when it was revealed by Swiss prosecutors six months ago.
“Documents were seized in connection with the suspected payment,” the Swiss federal prosecution office said in a statement yesterday. A formal request for help from French authorities had been made on Jan. 14.
Though no criminal case is yet open against Platini, the suspended president of European soccer body UEFA, Switzerland’s attorney general Michael Lauber has previously said he is “between a witness and an accused person.”
“Michel Platini’s status in the proceedings has remained unchanged,” Lauber’s office said.
Platini’s lawyers said in a statement yesterday that the Swiss intervention was a positive step.
“We welcome this new stage because the sooner Swiss justice completes the investigation, the sooner Michel Platini will get out of the news headlines in which he does not belong,” the statement said.
Platini was based in Paris rather than at FIFA’s home in Zurich when he worked as Blatter’s presidential adviser from 1999-2002. Then, the French federation’s offices were on Avenue d’Iena, near the Arc de Triomphe.
The federation, now working from a building fronted by glass panels on Boulevard de Grenelle, issued no statement about the raid.
French media reported that the documents seized related to a contract between the federation and Platini for rented office space in 1999-2002. AP
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