FIFA compliance head: Blatter to Platini payment a 'conflict of interest'

Sepp Blatter's authorization of a payment to fellow FIFA executive Michel Platini without a written contract was a "classic conflict of interest," FIFA's financial compliance head told The Associated Press on Tuesday.

SI Staff | Oct 20, 2015

FIFA compliance head: Blatter to Platini payment a 'conflict of interest' /

ZURICH (AP) — Sepp Blatter's authorization of a payment to fellow FIFA executive Michel Platini without a written contract was a "classic conflict of interest," FIFA's financial compliance head told The Associated Press on Tuesday.

Audit and compliance committee chairman Domenico Scala said that FIFA president Blatter could be culpable of "falsification" of accounts over the 2011 payment of 2 million Swiss francs (about $2 million) to Platini.

Platini, the president of UEFA, said the money was owed from his job as an adviser to Blatter between 1998 and 2002, but there was only a verbal agreement for the debt.

"Both parties, the president and Mr. Platini should have rescued from their positions because both are members of the executive committee of FIFA and they both have a conflict of interest," Scala told the AP in the first public comments on the case by a FIFA insider, other than Blatter and Platini.

Suspension could doom Michel Platini's FIFA presidential campaign

"Mr. Platini has asked the president to pay him a prescribed amount, which he should not have asked, which is why it is a classic conflict of interest."

Both Blatter and Platini are serving 90-day provisional suspensions, while FIFA's ethics committee completes a full investigation into the actions of two of the most powerful officials in world sport.

The case could end Platini's hopes of succeeding Blatter as FIFA leader in an election set for February, although both men deny wrongdoing and are appealing against their suspensions.

MORE: FIFA ExCo agrees to keep Feb. 26 election date

Scala is also head of the ad-hoc election committee which rules on the eligibility of presidential candidates, but he has no say in the ethics case.

Blatter last week said he had a "gentleman's agreement" with Platini over the payment.

"If it is true what they are saying that they had an oral agreement at the time they made the written contract to defer the payment, that payment should have been recorded in the accounts in 2002 and subsequent years," Scala said. "It has not. If you approve as a member of a supervisory board financial accounts which you know that 2 million are not accrued you have possibly done a falsification of a document.

MORE: Platini on allegations: 'I am bulletproof'

"It doesn't make a difference if you do that in a limited company or an association. The result and the consequences are the same."

Scala stressed that it is an issue if "two members of the executive committee, have an agreement and no one knows about it.

"It is their obligation to disclose it to the executive committee that they have such an agreement."

GALLERY: Faces of the FIFA scandal

Faces of the FIFA Scandal

Sepp Blatter

Elyxandro Cegarra/Panoramic/Icon Sportswire

FIFA president

Jerome Valcke

FIFA general secretary

Michel Platini

UEFA president; FIFA Vice President; FIFA presidential hopeful

Jack Warner

Ex–CONCACAF president; FIFA Vice President

Jeffrey Webb

Ex–Cayman Islands federation and CONCACAF president; FIFA Vice President

Chuck Blazer

Ex-CONCACAF general secretary; FIFA executive committee

Alfredo Hawit

CONCACAF President; FIFA vice president, executive committee; Former president, Honduras football federation

Juan Angel Napout

CONMEBOL president, FIFA vice president, executive committee; Former president, Paraguay football federation

Jose Luis Meiszner

CONMEBOL general secretary

Marco Polo del Nero

Former FIFA executive committee; President, Brazil football federation

Ricardo Teixeira

Former FIFA executive committee; Former president, Brazil football federation

Eduardo Li

Ex–Costa Rica federation president; FIFA, CONCACAF executive committees

Eugenio Figueredo

Ex–Uruguay federation and CONMEBOL president; FIFA Vice President

Jose Maria Marin

Ex–Brazil federation president; CONMEBOL executive committee

Rafael Salguero

Former FIFA executive committee; Former president, Guatemalan football federation

Manuel Burga

FIFA development committee; Former president, Peru football federation

Ariel Alvarado

Former president, Panama football federation; FIFA disciplinary committee

Eduardo Deluca

Former CONMEBOL, Argentina football federation general secretary

Luís Chiriboga

CONMEBOL executive committee; President, Ecuador football federation

Rafael Callejas

FIFA television and marketing committee; Former president, Honduras; Former president, Honduras football federation

Rafael Esquivel

Ex–Venezuela federation president; CONMEBOL executive committee

Carlos Chavez

CONMEBOL treasurer; Former president, Bolivia football federation

Nicolas Leoz

Ex–CONMEBOL president, FIFA executive committee

Julio Rocha

Ex–Nicaragua federation and Central American Football Union president

Romer Osuna

FIFA audit and compliance committee; Former CONMEBOL treasurer.

Alejandro Burzaco

CEO of Torneos y Competencias

Aaron Davidson

President, Traffic Sports USA

Hugo Jinkis

President, Full Play Group

Mariano Jinkis

Vice President, Full Play Group

Loretta Lynch

U.S. Attorney General

Michael Lauber

Switzerland Attorney General

Published Oct 20, 2015

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