Former FIFA president Sepp Blatter and ex-UEFA chief Michel Platini to be retried in Switzerland in March after pair were cleared in 2022 following six-year investigation for fraud into a payment of £1.6m

The appeal trial of Sepp Blatter and Michel Platini will take place in March of next year at the Basel-Landschaft district court in Liestal, Switzerland.

Former FIFA president Sepp Blatter and French footballing legend Michel Platini were both cleared of corruption charges by a Swiss court in 2022.

The decision followed a six-year investigation for fraud into a payment of £1.6m paid to former UEFA president by FIFA in 2011.

Blatter, who led FIFA for 17 years, was cleared of fraud by the Federal Criminal Court in the southern city of Bellinzona.

Platini, a former France national team captain and manager, was also acquitted of fraud. The two, once among the most powerful figures in world football, denied the charges against them.

The case will now be examined once more with hearings scheduled from the 3rd to the 6th and from the 11th to the 13th, and a deliberation on the 25th, according to Le Monde.

Both have confirmed their presence at the retrial with Blatter saying: 'I am waiting for the appeal chamber to confirm the first instance judgment of the TPF of 2022.'

This time the trial will take place in front of the Judicial Court of the Basel-Landschaft, rather than the Bellinzona Federal Criminal Court.  

The two men were charged with 'fraud, dishonest management, breach of trust and forgery of documents' in the investigation led by Federal Prosecutor Thomas Hildbrand. 

The charges were placed against the pair following an investigation launched by prosecutors in 2015 into a payment of two million Swiss francs (£1.6m) arranged by Blatter to be paid to Platini by FIFA in February 2011.

The case saw Blatter forced to end his 17-year reign as FIFA president in 2015 and dashed hopes of former France midfielder Platini of succeeding him. Platini was forced to quit UEFA in 2016.

Blatter, 86, had said the two-million franc payment followed a 'gentlemen's agreement' between the pair when he asked Platini to be his technical advisor in 1998.

Platini, 67, worked as a consultant between 1998 and 2002 with an annual salary of 300,000 Swiss francs - the most FIFA could afford because of money troubles the organisation had at the time, Blatter has told the court.

The rest of Platini's one million per year salary was to be settled at a later date, Blatter said.

Motives for the payment were unclear, although the two men met in 2010 and discussed the upcoming elections for the FIFA presidency in 2011.

When Blatter approved the payment, he was campaigning for re-election against Mohamed bin Hammam of Qatar. Platini, then president of UEFA, was seen as having sway with European members who could influence the vote.

The payment emerged following a huge investigation launched by the U.S. Department of Justice into bribery, fraud and money-laundering at FIFA in 2015, which triggered Blatter's resignation.

Blatter and Platini claim they had a verbal deal in 1998 for the Frenchman to be paid one million Swiss francs (£818,000) to serve as advisor to Blatter, should he be elected as FIFA president.

That defence first failed with judges at the FIFA ethics committee, and later in separate appeals at the Court of Arbitration for Sport.

The FIFA ethics committee investigations banned them from football for eight years, reduced to six on appeal.

Platini, who also lost his job as UEFA president following the ban, said the affair was a deliberate attempt to thwart his attempt to become FIFA president in 2015.

Platini's former general secretary at UEFA, Gianni Infantino, entered the FIFA race and won the election in 2016.

Platini signed a contract with FIFA in August 1999 for 300,000 Swiss francs (£245,000) annually and backdated to January.