FIFA sues Platini and Blatter over “illicit” €1.8 million payment

Football’s governing body, FIFA, announced on Monday that it has filed a civil lawsuit against former president Joseph ‘Sepp’ Blatter and former vice-president Michel Platini to recover CHF 2 million (€1.8 million) paid to Platini in 2011.

Euronews reports that the claims have been filed in Swiss courts following the “unanimous resolution recently adopted by the FIFA Governance Committee in which it emphasised that FIFA was duty-bound to try to recover the funds illicitly paid by one former official to another.”

The funds (together with interest) will be fully channelled back into football development, which is where the money should have gone in the first place, FIFA added.

The two men had argued that the money had been part of an oral agreement between them and was meant to act as payment to Platini for the four years he served as an advisor to Blatter from 1998-2002.

Via Euronews