Blatter wishes Platini bribery case would come to an end

ZURICH: Sepp Blatter said on Thursday that he is growing impatient.

The former FIFA president has been under investigation since 2015 over an “illegal payment” to Michel Platini, and would like the whole thing to be wrapped up.

Blatter, talking to journalists in Zurich on Thursday, said “nothing” had happened since September 2015, the date of the opening of proceedings against him for “corrupt management” stemming from the two million Swiss Franc (1.8mn euro, $2mn) payment to Platini, the former head of European governing body UEFA, adding “it’s a bit long”.

The lawyers of both men were summoned two weeks ago by the Swiss courts in Bern.“Platini has appealed to the European Court of Human Rights, two weeks ago the Swiss court heard the Platini clan in Bern, my lawyer was also present and he again showed that the payment to Platini was done correctly,” Blatter explained.

Blatter, who is 82, was president of FIFA from 1998 until June 2015 when he quit days after winning relection for a fifth term as a wave of scandals broke.

He was later banned from football by FIFA for eight years, a sentence then reduced to six years over a payment to Platini, his former friend and ally. Unlike Blatter, Platini has fought his own, four-year, ban in the civil courts. After being rebuffed by a Swiss tribunal, the Frenchman turned to Strasbourg.“I wish we could finish,” Blatter said. “What I want to do is work alongside Swiss justice but also find the arguments necessary to obtain a reversal of the decision of the (FIFA) ethics commission.”