Platini now a ‘formal’ suspect in Swiss case

CONCACAF to revise qualifying format

GENEVA, June 27, (AP): French soccer great Michel Platini has been formally placed under investigation in Switzerland in relation to a $2 million payment he got from FIFA in 2011.

Swiss federal prosecutors this month extended their open criminal proceedings into then-FIFA president Sepp Blatter’s role in the payment to include Platini, according to a document seen Friday by The Associated Press.

Platini, who was the president of European soccer body UEFA at the time, is suspected of being an accomplice to criminal mismanagement, of misappropriation and an act of forgery, the document states.

The former France national team captain submitted invoices to FIFA in January 2011 seeking payment for an uncontracted additional salary from working as a presidential adviser in Blatter’s first term, from 1998-2002. He was paid the next month.

In this Friday, April 29, 2016 file photo, UEFA President Michel Platini leaves the international Court of Arbitration for Sport, CAS, surrounded by media after a hearing in Lausanne, Switzerland. Former UEFA president Michel Platini is formally under investigation in Switzerland for a $2 million payment he got from FIFA in

2011. (AP)

Platini’s four-year ban expired in October and he has been planning to return to the sport. He turned 65 last week. The long-standing allegation was revived two years after Platini said Swiss prosecutors told him he had been cleared of wrongdoing.