Ex-FIFA chief Blatter faces third meeting with Swiss prosecutor

Former FIFA president Sepp Blatter will meet with a Swiss prosecutor for a third straight day, following a second meeting Tuesday in a probe surrounding a suspect payment to Michel Platini.

Blatter is being investigated over a two million Swiss franc FIFA payment in 2011 to Platini, who was then in charge of UEFA.

In final hearings in the investigation, Blatter met with a federal prosecutor from the Office of the Attorney General (OAG) of Switzerland on Monday in Zurich, where FIFA has its headquarters.

Due to Blatter’s fragile health, he can only stay for a couple of hours at a time. He returned on Tuesday to continue the hearing for a further 90 minutes, and his spokesman Thomas Renggli said afterwards that Blatter would return again on Wednesday, and possibly on Thursday too.

Under the Swiss Code of Criminal Procedure, in lengthy and complex proceedings, suspects “are questioned one last time before the investigation is concluded”, the OAG said.

While Platini’s final interview with the prosecutor was in March, Blatter’s hearing was postponed to August due to the his health.

He spent two months in hospital in December and January after undergoing heart surgery, and in March was convalescing in a clinic.

He was forced to stand down in 2015 and was banned by FIFA for eight years, later reduced to six, over ethics breaches for authorising what prosecutors termed a “disloyal payment” to Platini.