Ex-UEFA chief Platini taking action to recoup back pay
Former UEFA president Michel Platini is taking action to obtain substantial amounts of back pay as well as a bonus and legal fees, he told AFP yesterday.
According to sources close to Platini, whose four-year suspension from football ended in October, the former France international is seeking to recoup around 7.2mn euros ($7.9mn), including 5.5mn euros in back pay.
The same sources said Platini was hoping to reclaim a bonus worth some 1.8mn euros “for his contribution to the success of Euro 2016 in France”, despite the fact he was suspended when the tournament was staged.
Platini was expected to succeed Sepp Blatter as FIFA president in 2016 but fell spectacularly from grace a few months earlier.
The 64-year-old was suspended by world football’s governing body in late 2015 over a controversial payment of 2mn Swiss francs (1.8mn euros, $2mn) from Blatter.
The payment, made in 2011 when Blatter was seeking re-election as president, was related to work carried out by Platini between 1999 and 2002. Platini has always insisted he did nothing wrong.
Speaking to AFP by telephone, Platini said: “Through my lawyer, I am asking for the contractual elements to be applied.”
Platini contested the claims that he is seeking 7.2mn euros. His Swiss lawyer, Vincent Solari, argues he “is entitled to a year’s salary as well as a contractually agreed bonus, that is to say 3mn Swiss francs ($3mn, 2.7mn euros).”
Solari added that European football’s governing body — over which Platini presided from 2007 until his ban in 2015 — were contractually obliged to pay him for almost two years even if he was unable to work “for whatever reason” and had, “on that basis”, already paid him one year’s salary.
They had, he insisted, “thereby acknowledged that the salary was owed regardless of the suspension”.
However, the matter appears likely to end in a court battle. Solari said UEFA were now contesting the claim “without any motivation”.
One source said Platini had first taken action to reclaim the money in the autumn of 2016 but said the triple Ballon d’Or winner had not yet gone to court “because he knows he has no chance of winning”.