FIFA Presidential candidate Michel Platini insists he’s still “the most able to run world football”.
The UEFA President has been suspended for 90 days as FIFA investigates a payment from Sepp Blatter, but has still entered as a candidate to succeed Sepp Blatter on February 26, though he cannot campaign until his ban expires.
FIFA Presidential candidate Michel Platini insists he’s still “the most able to run world football”.
The UEFA President has been suspended for 90 days as FIFA investigates a payment from Sepp Blatter, but has still entered as a candidate to succeed Sepp Blatter on February 26, though he cannot campaign until his ban expires.
“I am, in all humility, the most able to run world football,” Platini insisted in an exclusive interview with the Telegraph.
“Even if I cannot go out campaigning, I fully consider myself a candidate. Today, I have the sense of being a knight from the Middle Ages, in front of a castle. I am trying to get in to bring football back, but instead I’m having boiling oil poured on my head.
“My record running Uefa is pretty clear, with the Champions League being opened up to minor nations and how the implementation of Financial Fair Play has already brought professional clubs’ debts down significantly.
“People want to prevent me running because they know that I have every chance of winning.
“I have the impression they don’t want a former player running Fifa as they don’t want to put football in footballers’ hands. But I am the only one who has a 360-degree view of football.
“I have been a player, a coach of the French national team, a director of a club with Nancy, an organiser of a World Cup [in France 98] and, right now, the boss of the most powerful confederation, a journey I have achieved with honesty.”
Platini also repeated his explanation of the 2 million Swiss francs he received from Blatter, which the Swiss attorney general is investigating.
“The two million represents the equivalent of four years’ salary arrears that Fifa owed me when I was the president’s special adviser. The president himself offered me a contract and a salary that I accepted.
“So to be clear: was there work provided? Yes. Is an oral contract legal in Switzerland? Yes. Did I have the right to reclaim my money even nine years later? Yes. Did I produce a proper invoice as Fifa required? Yes. Was the money declared to the taxman? Yes.
“Fifa had the right, after five years, not to pay me. But they decided to respect what was a perfectly valid arrangement.
“My approach has been totally transparent. I informed the people concerned at Uefa who took it up with the finance department at Fifa. My invoice was then paid up from a standard Fifa account.
“I was always assured that the payment had followed internal‑compliance rules at Fifa. The finance director, Markus Kattner, made the payment on the basis of a proper invoice.
"I don’t want to believe in conspiracy theories. Yes, I have waited a long time to reclaim what I was owed. But the only mistake is that I let several years go by.
“I had faith in the word of the Fifa president and I knew he would pay me one day. I was lucky enough not to need the money, but just because I don’t need the money doesn’t mean I shouldn’t be paid for my work.”