Former UEFA President, Michel Platini leaves the special appeals court in Muttenz, Switzerland, Monday, March 3, 2025. (Urs Flueeler/Keystone via AP)

MUTTENZ, Switzerland (AP) — Former FIFA president Sepp Blatter distanced himself from corruption in soccer when he went on trial Monday for the second time alongside his one-time protege Michel Platini.

Blatter and Platini returned to a federal court room nearly three years after they were acquitted at a first trial in July 2022 on charges of fraud, forgery and misappropriation of FIFA money. Swiss federal prosecutors appealed against those verdicts.

Blatter approved a FIFA payment of 2 million Swiss francs (now $2.21 million) to France soccer great Platini in 2011 for backdated work as a presidential advisor a decade earlier.

“When you talk about falsehoods, lies and deceptions, that is not me,” the 88-year-old Blatter said in German to three judges hearing the case. “That didn’t exist in my whole life.”

Blatter and Platini deny wrongdoing in a case now in its 10th year that ended the political careers of arguably the two most influential men in world soccer who led FIFA and European governing body UEFA.

They have consistently claimed at five different judicial bodies — twice at FIFA, then the Court of Arbitration for Sport and now two Swiss federal criminal courts — they had a verbal “gentleman's agreement” to one day settle the unpaid and non-contracted salary.

Federal prosecutors indictment in November 2021 said the payment “damaged FIFA’s assets and unlawfully enriched Platini.”

“There’s no corruption, no scam, nothing at all,” Platini said after five hours in court on the first of four scheduled days.

The acquittal came nearly seven years after the investigation was opened and removed them from office. It also ended Platini’s campaign as the favored candidate to succeed Blatter, his former political mentor.

“I am hopeful,” Blatter told reporters in German entering the courthouse appearing frail one week before his 89th birthday.

He arrived at court 10 minutes after Platini — one-time allies at FIFA, turned rivals for control of soccer's governing body until 2015, now co-accused for almost a decade.

Their second trial is due to end Thursday, with reserve days booked after Blatter's 89th birthday next Monday. The verdict from three judges is scheduled for March 25.

Prosecutor Thomas Hildbrand, a veteran of FIFA investigations dating back more than two decades, has asked for sentences of 20 months, suspended for two years.

Blatter was president of FIFA and the most influential figure in world soccer for 17 years until being ousted early from office in 2015 amid fallout from a corruption crisis in the sport.

Platini was a storied former captain and coach of the France national term, then organizing the 1998 World Cup in his home country, when he worked to help Blatter get elected to lead FIFA in Paris on the eve of the tournament.

Then he agreed to be a presidential advisor on an annual salary of 300,000 Swiss francs (now $332,000) through 2002. They claim there was a verbal deal to later get the balance of 1 million Swiss francs for each year that FIFA could not pay at the time.

Platini started asking for the money early in 2010 and the payment was finally made in February 2011. FIFA's then-finance director Markus Kattner was the only witness called Monday, by Platini's lawyers.

Details of the payment only emerged in the crisis that hit FIFA in May 2015 when U.S. federal investigators unsealed a sweeping investigation of international soccer officials. Swiss authorities made early-morning arrests at hotels in Zurich before seizing FIFA financial and business records.

In 2015, Swiss federal prosecutors already were handling a criminal complaint filed by FIFA. It suspected financial wrongdoing linked to votes in December 2010 that picked Russia and Qatar as future World Cup hosts.

In the 2021 indictment, Hildbrand did not link the payment to FIFA internal politics.

Blatter and Platini were acquitted in July 2022 after an 11-day trial at Switzerland's federal criminal court in Bellinzona.

Appeals were filed months later by the Swiss attorney general’s office and FIFA, and the fresh trial was delayed after Platini won a ruling last year ordering federal appeal judges to be recused.

The second trial eventually opened Monday at a cantonal (state) courthouse sitting as a federal tribunal. It is being heard in German by three judges each from different cantons (states).

“I haven’t completely followed everything, it’s difficult,” acknowledged Platini, who also speaks Italian and English and sat next to an interpreter in court translating into French.

FIFA was not represented in court, and Platini’s lawyer Dominic Nellen urged the judges to dismiss its status as appellant, asking: “Where is FIFA?”

FIFA has pursued a civil judgment to recover the money and 229,000 Swiss francs ($253,000) in social charges paid, plus interest. Platini has said he declared the money as income and paid Swiss taxes on it.

Neither Blatter nor Platini has worked in soccer since they were suspended by the FIFA ethics committee in October 2015. They were later banned and failed to overturn those in separate appeals to the Court of Arbitration for Sport in 2016.

Platini’s ban expired in 2019 and Blatter was given a subsequent ban by FIFA in 2021 months before his first was due to end.

Blatter is exiled from soccer until late in 2028 — when he will be 92 — because of an ethics prosecution of alleged self-dealing in eight-figure management bonuses paid for successfully organizing the men’s World Cup in 2010 and 2014.

As part of that case overseen by new FIFA ethics officials appointed by Blatter's successor Gianni Infantino, Kattner also was banned for 10 years in 2020.

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