Platini ends his bid for FIFA presidency
Michel Platini said Thursday that he was ending his bid to become president of soccer’s governing body, FIFA, dropping out of a race that technically did not include him and one that he is officially barred from winning.
In a series of interviews, Platini said he would continue his fight to overturn his eight-year suspension from world soccer, imposed last month by FIFA’s ethics committee. But he said pursuing that cause and the presidency before the Feb. 27 FIFA election was unworkable.
“I don’t have the means to fight on equal terms with the other candidates,” Platini told The Associated Press. “I have not been given the chance to play the game.”
Platini, a member of FIFA’s governing executive committee since 2002 and the top official of European soccer since 2007, has harshly criticized his ban, which was imposed in December after the ethics committee deemed his actions in soliciting and accepting a $2 million payment from FIFA in 2011 “did not show commitment to an ethical attitude.”
Suggesting a conspiracy to keep him out of the race to replace the similarly suspended Sepp Blatter as FIFA president, Platini has vowed to appeal the ban to the Court of Ar- bitration for Sport.
“I can’t have any regret in that story because things fell upon my head while I haven’t done anything wrong,” Platini told AP in an interview in Nyon, Switzerland. “I’m struggling to understand what happened, unless there was a will somewhere to prevent me from bidding.”
Once a favourite to win the election, Platini is barred not only from voting in it but even from attending it. And even if he succeeds in having his suspension overturned, it is unclear if Platini can pass the new integrity checks required by FIFA to enter the race. On Thursday, he acknowledged that even if he was successful, he would not have enough time to campaign for the support he would need to win.
Platini’s announcement and CAS’ recent rejection of appeals by two other disqualified candidates mean the field of approved challengers bidding to replace Blatter remains at five. They are: Prince Ali bin al-Hussein of Jordan, who lost a challenge to Blatter at the FIFA congress last May; Sheikh Salman bin Ebrahim al-Khalifa of Bahrain, the powerful Asian Football Confederation president; South African businessman Tokyo Sexwale; Jérôme Champagne, a former aide to Blatter; and longtime European soccer official Gianni Infantino.