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Former FIFA president Sepp Blatter and French football legend Michel Platini were acquitted of corruption charges by a Swiss court on Tuesday.
The pair, once among the most powerful figures in world football, were acquitted of the charges in the extraordinary appeals chamber of the Swiss Criminal Court in the town of Muttenz, near Basel.
The hearing took place after Swiss federal prosecutors appealed against their 2022 release to a lower court.
"After two acquittals, even the Swiss Attorney General's Office must realize that these criminal proceedings have ultimately failed. Michel Platini must finally be left alone in the criminal cases ," Platini's lawyer, Dominic Nellen, said in a statement.
The case related to a payment of 2 million Swiss francs (£1.75 million) that Blatter authorised to Platini, the former captain and manager of the French national team, in 2011.
The payment was a consultancy fee paid to Platini for work carried out between 1998 and 2002, which the Frenchman said was deferred in part because FIFA lacked the funds to pay it in full immediately.
The scandal, which emerged in 2015 when Platini was president of European governing body UEFA, ended his hopes of succeeding Blatter, who was forced to leave FIFA over the affair.
" The criminal proceedings have had not only legal but also massive personal and professional consequences for Michel Platini - even though no incriminating evidence was presented. Among other things, the criminal proceedings prevented his election as FIFA president in 2016 ," Nellen said.
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