FORMER Fifa president Sepp Blatter distanced himself from corruption in football when he went on trial today for the second time alongside his one-time protege Michel Platini.

Blatter and Platini returned to a federal courtroom nearly three years after they were acquitted at a first trial on charges of fraud, forgery and misappropriation of Fifa money. Swiss federal prosecutors appealed against those verdicts from July 2022.

Blatter approved a Fifa payment of 2 million Swiss francs (now £1.7m) to Platini in 2011 for working as a presidential adviser a decade earlier.