Prosecutors demand suspended jail terms for Sepp Blatter and Michel Platini

Prosecutors in the fraud trial of former Fifa president Sepp Blatter and vice president Michel Platini asked for both to get 20-month suspended prison sentences on Wednesday.

Blatter and Platini, the former France captain who was president of European governing body Uefa, faced sentences of up to five years for financial wrongdoing but actual jail time was considered to be unlikely ahead of their 11-day trial. Verdicts are expected on July 8.

The 86-year-old Blatter's legal jeopardy increased on Wednesday when prosecutors in Zurich confirmed they had opened criminal proceedings against him in a separate complaint filed by football's world body in 2020.

Blatter and his longtime right-hand man, former Fifa secretary general Jerome Valcke, are now formal suspects in an investigation of alleged mismanagement relating to the Fifa World Football Museum project in central Zurich. The new details were first reported by a Swiss financial news website.

Earlier on Wednesday at the Swiss federal criminal court in Bellinzona, prosecutor Thomas Hildbrand also asked the three judges for Platini to pay Fifa more than 2.2 million Swiss francs ($2.2 million) in compensation.

Blatter and Platini deny fraud and lesser charges relating to a Fifa-approved $2m payment to the France great in 2011. At the time, Platini was Uefa president, a Fifa vice president and was expected to succeed Blatter.

Platini said in a statement published after the court session that he was “serene and confident”.

“The indictment of the prosecutor today is devoid of any basis,” Platini said. “The debates of the trial proved that this criminal procedure had no reason to exist.”

The prosecution argued there was no legal or contractual basis for Fifa to pay Platini’s invoice for working as a presidential adviser in Blatter’s first term between 1998 and 2002. Fifa also paid $229,000 of social security taxes in Zurich.

Both have long denied wrongdoing and claim they had a verbal deal in 1998 for Platini to get extra salary that Fifa could not pay at the time. Platini signed a contract in August 1999 to be paid 300,000 Swiss francs ($300,000) annually.

Their defence previously failed at the Fifa ethics committee, which banned them from football and removed them from office, the Fifa appeals committee, and later in separate appeals at the Court of Arbitration for Sport.