Platini plans comeback, legal fight after 4-yr ban
NYON, SWITZERLAND: Four years after a ban for financial wrongdoing thwarted his chances of becoming FIFA president, Michel Platini is free to work in soccer again on Tuesday.
However, the former UEFA president - who was once seen as the heir apparent to FIFA’S Sepp Blatter - said Monday he is still unsure where and when he will return to the game that has continued to dominate his life even after his stellar playing career with France.
“I have some idea but it’s difficult to speak today,” Platini said in an interview about his future plans, hours before the ban was set to expire.
And any comeback into a senior role would likely force him to first pay FIFA a fine of 60,000 Swiss francs ($60,300) that is three years overdue. Platini is still challenging that fine in court and continues to dispute the allegations that led to his four-year ban from all football activities.
The charges of receiving an irregular payment and wrongful pension entitlement approved by Blatter derailed Platini’s hopes of succeeding his former mentor as the head of global soccer.
Now aged 64, Platini looks hardly to have aged at all during that ban, which became the longest vacation of his storied life in soccer.
The former France great said he is keeping all options open, but pointed out that the next elections for top roles at FIFA, UEFA and the French football association are “some years ahead.”
In the Paris headquarters of the French f ederation, t he 77-year-old Noël Le Graët, recently promoted by UEFA to a seat on FIFA’S ruling council, is in office until 2021.
“It’s not now,” said Platini, who captained and coached the national team, and organised the 1998 World Cup won by France at home. “I have time, if I come back to this.”
Currently, his focus is on what i s l i kely t he l ast l egal f i ght against allegations that were upheld so far by two FIFA judicial bodies, the Court of Arbitration for Sport and Switzerland’s supreme court.
Platini has challenged the Swiss federal ruling at the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, and “that means I don’t pay this fine” until a ruling.
That ongoing sense of injustice, and unpaid debt, could cause FIFA’S ethics committee to impede his return.