Blatter and Platini reiterate innocence in testimony to court

Sepp Blatter and Michel Platini strongly reiterated their innocence as the two former football leaders were questioned on day two of their criminal trial on charges of defrauding Fifa.

Blatter was due to testify on the opening day on Wednesday but the former Fifa president said he was bothered by chest pains and asked to respond the following morning.

“I feel much better, thank you,” the 86-year-old said at the start of Thursday’s session at the Federal Criminal Court of Switzerland in Bellinzona.

Blatter’s 17-year reign as president came to an end in June 2015, when he resigned amid a corruption scandal. A few months later, federal prosecutors in Switzerland revealed their investigation into a two million dollar (£1.59 million) payment from Fifa to Platini from four years earlier.

The fallout from the case also ended Platini’s campaign to succeed his former mentor and removed the France football great as president of Uefa.

Both have long denied wrongdoing and claim they had a verbal deal in 1998 for Platini to be paid one million Swiss francs to serve as adviser to Blatter if he was elected as Fifa president. That defence first failed with judges at the Fifa ethics committee, which banned them from football, and later in separate appeals at the Court of Arbitration for Sport.

Platini’s contract with Fifa, signed in August 1999, was for 300,000 Swiss francs annually and backdated to January. It is claimed Blatter said he would pay only the same as Fifa’s then-secretary general, and promised the balance later.

“In the verbal contract we didn’t determine the date he would get it, it was a contract between men, and we started work immediately. I didn’t give him a precise time when he would get it,” Blatter said.

“When I was