By Andrew Warshaw
March 10 – Sepp Blatter and Michel Platini have reacted strongly to the police raid on the headquarters of the French Football Federation as part of the Swiss criminal investigation into the infamous “disloyal payment” that led to both men being banned by FIFA’s ethics committee.
The latest dramatic twist in the case, in which a number of documents were seized, was announced just 24 hours ahead of Blatter’s 80th birthday and took the former FIFA president, deposed last month after almost 18 years, completely by surprise.
Platini worked as a consultant to Blatter from 1999 to 2002 while he was based in Paris but Blatter said of the police raid: “I am very surprised by this,” adding that the SFr2m payment in question “was not made to FFF nor UEFA, but put into the private account of Michel Platini in a Swiss bank.”
“‘That is in fact how this (the payment) came to light, since this Swiss bank informed Swiss financial regulators at the time, because when a private person receives two million francs, there are alarm bells that ring,” Blatter told AFP.
Blatter said it was simply a coincidence that the raid took place so close to his 80th birthday.
“I don’t think that the Swiss prosecutors office considered that it was the day before my birthday,” he said, adding that the announcement would not spoil his celebrations. “I don’t see how this could ruin this lovely day. We will have a family celebration of these 80 candles.”
“They wanted to make me a cake and have me blow out 80 candles, but I said: Life is light, and it is not at the age of 80 that I will blow out the light on a cake. I won’t blow out my life.”
Both Blatter and Platini are taking their respective six-year bans to the Court of Arbitration for Sport and a statement from Platini’s lawyers said: “We welcome this new step because as soon as the Swiss judiciary has completed its inquiry Michel Platini’s involvement will no longer figure within the news agenda where it has no place.”
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