FIFA suing Blatter and Platini to reimburse 'undue payment'

Former FIFA leaders, Sepp Blatter and Michel Platini have been sued by the governing body due to an issue over returning to an illicit payment. The former president and vice-president are being sued in an attempt to reclaim a €1.8million so-called “gift” to which the Swiss Federal Supreme Court called an “undue payment”.

The payment was given to Platini in 2011 caused both the FIFA leaders receiving substantial bans from football activities in 2015. Several appeals were made and because of that the ban was reduced to six years for Blatter and four years for Platini. Originally, both were handed with an eight-year ban.

FIFA’s governance committee last month ruled the world’s governing body was “duty-bound to try to recover the funds”, which was agreed by both, Blatter and Platini that it was paid in an oral agreement rather than being mentioned in a formal contract.

Following backing by Switzerland’s Federal Supreme Court, FIFA now has filed claims against the former dignitaries, calling them disgraced. 

The money which should have gone into football development was used for some other causes and an attempt to fool the higher authorities was made. The FIFA statement read,” FIFA has today filed claims in the relevant Swiss courts against the former FIFA president Joseph Blatter and former FIFA vice-president Michel Platini, seeking restitution of the CHF 2million unduly paid to Mr.Platini back in February 2011.

“This follows the unanimous resolution recently adopted by the FIFA governance committee in which it emphasized that FIFA was duty-bound to try to recover the funds illicitly paid by one former official to another. Even the Swiss court has confirmed that this CHF 2 million gift was to be viewed as an ‘undue payment’.

If and when successfully recovered, the funds would be fully channeled back into football development, where the money should have gone in the first place.” 

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