July 30 – A Swiss court has rejected FIFA’s bid to revive a criminal probe against former president Sepp Blatter over a 2005 deal with the Caribbean Football Union (CFU) to sell World Cup broadcasting rights.
Last year criminal mismanagement charges against Blatter by Swiss prosecutors were dropped. The Swiss attorney general’s office decided to close an investigation into the alleged 1995 deal with the CFU, then under control of the infamous Jack Warner, to sell the rights on the cheap.
Prosecutors had investigated Blatter for signing a contract with the CFU that was unfavourable to FIFA. The contract granted television rights for the 2010 and 2014 World Cups to the CFU for $600,000 dollars, an amount deemed to be way below market price.
The case was dropped because prosecutors were unable to determine the market value for the television rights and thus also not the amount of the damage.
FIFA, as the damaged party, sought to reverse the OAG’s decision but its appeal that the case should be reinstated has now been rejected by the Board of Appeal of the Federal Criminal Court.
The court also found no indication that Blatter had been acting in breach of the contract for the television rights.
In any case the matter could not be pursued because of a statute of limitations since more than more than 15 years had passed since the contract was signed.
In a second criminal case, Blatter, now 85, is still under investigation over the controversial payment of CHF2 million to then UEFA chief Michel Platini, in February 2011 – four years before he was ousted as FIFA president.
Blatter, who was banned for six years for his conduct, has always stuck to the view that he did nothing wrong and that the infamous “disloyal payment” to Platini in 2011 for consultancy work carried out a decade earlier was above board even though under Swiss law, a payment is disloyal if it is against the best interest of the employer.
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