Geneva
Former FIFA president Sepp Blatter will meet with a Swiss prosecutor for a third straight day, following a second meeting Tuesday in a probe surrounding a suspect payment to Michel Platini.
Former world football chief Blatter is being investigated over a two million Swiss franc ($2.2 million, 1.85 million euro) FIFA payment in 2011 to Platini, who was then in charge of European football’s governing body UEFA.
In final hearings in the investigation, Blatter met with a Federal prosecutor from the Office of the Attorney General (OAG) of Switzerland on Monday in Zurich, where FIFA has its headquarters. Due to Blatter’s fragile health, he can only stay for a couple of hours at a time.
He returned on Tuesday to continue the hearing for a further 90 minutes, and his spokesman Thomas Renggli said afterwards that Blatter would return again on Wednesday — and possibly on Thursday too. “Mr. Blatter is happy, but not with the prosecutors’ questions. It’s a bit ridiculous.
The suspicions about him are a little absurd,” Renggli told AFP. Under the Swiss Code of Criminal Procedure, in lengthy and complex proceedings, suspects “are questioned one last time before the investigation is concluded”, the OAG said.
While Platini’s final interview with the prosecutor was in March, Blatter’s hearing was postponed to August due to the retired Swiss football administrator’s health.—AFP
