Fifa takes former chiefs Blatter and Platini to court to recover $2m

Sepp Blatter, the disgraced former head of Fifa, was suspended from football over a an alleged secret $2 million payment to Michel Platini

Former Fifa president Sepp Blatter leaves the international Court of Arbitration for Sport in Lausanne, Switzerland, after attending as a witness for the hearing of Uefa president Michel Platini who was appealing against a six-year Fifa ban. EPAShow less

Fifa has filed court claims against its former president Joseph "Sepp" Blatter and vice-president Michel Platini to recoup $2 million (Dh7.3m).

Football's world governing body lodged the claim in a Swiss court on Monday.

In a statement it said: "Fifa has today filed claims in the relevant Swiss courts against former Fifa president Joseph Blatter and former Fifa vice-president Michel Platini, seeking restitution of the 2 million francs unduly paid to Mr Platini back in February 2011."

It added that it was "duty-bound to try to recover the funds illicitly paid by one former official to another".

Both men were banned from football in 2015 over the $2m payment made to Platini with Blatter's approval in 2011 for work he had done a decade earlier.

However, the payment was received just months after Qatar was awarded the World Cup 2022 amid allegations of bribery and corruption.

Blatter and Platini, who could not immediately be reached for comment, have maintained they did nothing wrong amid what became part of the biggest corruption scandal to shake the world football body, resulting in numerous prosecutions and convictions in the United States.

Platini, the head of European football body UEFA from 2007 to 2015, was originally banned from all football-related activities for eight years, though the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) later reduced the suspension to four years. His ban ended this year.

Blatter's ban was reduced from eight years to six, a period later upheld by CAS in a decision that concluded the now-83-year-old had "breached the FIFA Code of Ethics since the payment amounted to an undue gift as it had no contractual basis".

Last week France’s National Public Prosecutor's Office officially opened a judicial inquiry into the World Cup 2022 vote.

It will look at suspected corruption surrounding the vote, which was held in December 2010.

The result saw Qatar triumph over the long-favoured US 14-8 in a final round of voting.