ZURICH: Authorities searched the offices of France’s football federation and seized documents to help a Swiss investigation into former FIFA President Sepp Blatter, Switzerland’s prosecutor said on Wednesday.

The operation, carried out a day earlier, was linked to a 2 million Swiss franc ($2 million) payment to France’s Michel Platini at the heart of proceedings against Blatter, Switzerland’s Office of the Attorney General (OAG) said.

The 79-year-old former head of world football’s scandal-plagued governing body said he was surprised by the search by members of the French financial prosecutor’s office.

“The payment to Mr Platini was made by FIFA to a private account in Switzerland and not through the French Football Federation or UEFA,” Blatter added in a statement issued by his adviser.

Swiss prosecutors, who requested the Paris search, said in September they had opened a criminal investigation into Blatter on suspicion of criminal mismanagement and misappropriation of funds, allegations he dismissed.

Blatter and UEFA President Michel Platini were both banned from football for six years over the 2011 FIFA payment to Platini, made with Blatter’s approval for work done a decade earlier. Both have denied any wrongdoing.

“Documents were seized in connection with the suspected payment of 2 million Swiss francs that is inter alia the subject of the proceedings,” the Swiss prosecutor said in a statement.

The French financial prosecutor’s office confirmed that the search took place, saying documents useful to the Swiss investigation were taken.

Platini’s status in the Swiss proceedings remains unchanged, the OAG said. In September, it described Platini as a “person asked to provide information”.

Platini’s lawyers said in a statement on Wednesday that the Swiss intervention was a positive step.

“We welcome this new stage because the sooner Swiss justice completes the investigation, the sooner Michel Platini will get out of the news headlines in which he does not belong,” the statement said.

Blatter was replaced as FIFA’s president on February 26 by Gianni Infantino, also a Swiss national born, like Blatter, in the Canton of Valais.

Infantino has vowed to turn the page on the crisis engulfing FIFA, which erupted last May when Swiss police, upon request from US authorities, arrested seven FIFA officials at a luxury Zurich hotel.

The US justice department has since charged 39 people within world football and two companies over graft going back decades.

Switzerland, aside from probing Blatter, is investigating possible corruption during the bidding for the 2018 and 2022 World Cups, won by Russia and Qatar.

Published in Dawn, March 10th, 2016