Former FIFA president Sepp Blatter and his UEFA counterpart Michel Platini are set for an 11-day trial on charges of defrauding FIFA bookending their downfall in the criminal courts.
The fallout from the case saw Blatter removed as president of FIFA and ended Platini’s run as head of UEFA and his campaign to succeed his former mentor.
The pair will go on trial in Bellinzona.
Their case has long been in the limelight beginning in 2015 when the federal prosecutors in Switzerland revealed their investigation into a $2 million payment from FIFA to Platini from four years earlier.
Subsidiary charges against the two include forgery of the invoice in 2011 that allowed Blatter to authorize FIFA to pay the 2 million Swiss francs (about $2 million) Platini had asked for.
Sepp Blatter and Michel Platini have both denied any wrongdoing claiming they had a verbal deal in 1998.
Their defense has already failed twice, once with judges at the FIFA ethics committee, which banned them from football and later in separate appeals at the Court of Arbitration for Sport.
Blatter is due to be questioned Wednesday and Platini one day later with both expected to give closing statements on June 22, when the trial ends.
The three federal judges will deliver the verdict on July 8 with Blatter and Platini each facing up to five years in prison, but suspended sentences are a likely option.
Blatter has said in a statement that everything was accounted for properly and he is optimistic about his chances at the trial.
Platini, on the other hand, has denounced what he called “unfounded and unfair accusations.”
He maintains that the allegations were fed to prosecutors in order to stop him from becoming FIFA president.
