Platini cleared of financial wrongdoing

Paris: Banned former Uefa president and Fifa vice-president Michel Platini says he is planning to return to football after Swiss federal prosecutors confirmed he was not being charged in an investigation into possible financial wrongdoing.

Platini said in a statement that the Swiss decision marked “the end of a long nightmare for my family and those close to me.” Since September 2015, the former France midfielder had the status of “between a witness and an accused person” in criminal proceedings opened against then-Fifa president Sepp Blatter. No criminal case was ever opened against Platini.

The evidence related to Blatter authorizing Fifa to pay Platini $2 million in uncontracted back salary in 2011.