Platini and Blatter must serve a one-year and eight-month suspended prison sentence, according to FIFA.

The Swiss public prosecutor's office demanded a year and eight months in prison, suspended, for Michel Platini and Fifa ex-president Sepp Blatter on Wednesday, accusing them of defrauding the football body by getting an unjustified payment for the French.

The Federal Criminal Court of Bellinzona (south-east) will rule on July 8 in this case, which has ruined the two leaders' careers and could result in their serving up to five years in prison.

 

Instead of seeking a life sentence for the 66-year-old Frenchman and the 86-year-old Swiss, prosecutor Thomas Hildbrand requested that their conviction be followed by a two-year suspended sentence.

 

He spent more than four and a half hours trying to disprove the idea of an "oral contract" between the two men for Platini's work as an adviser between 1998 and 2002 when he had just left. Ally with the Swiss to get him to the leadership of Fifa.

 

In August 1999, Blatter and Platini undoubtedly signed a written agreement providing for a yearly payment of 300,000 Swiss francs, which was paid in full by Fifa. However, they stated that they had pledged to pay an additional 700,000 annual francs when the organization's finances permitted it.

 

Platini, who had become president of UEFA in the meantime, provided Fifa with an invoice for 2 million Swiss francs (1.8 million euros) in early 2011, signed by Sepp Blatter and presented as a late salary balance.

 

Even if the body had sent a million Swiss francs to Platini in 1999, it would still have had "more than 21 million francs in cash," according to Thomas Hildbrand, and its reserves had reached 327 million in 2002.

 

He emphasized that agreeing to such a sum without a written record, witnesses, or even providing it in the books is "contrary to commercial procedures" as well as Fifa's customs.

 

The trial, which began last Wednesday and will go until June 22, will begin with the pleadings of Fifa, a civil party, and then the defense.