- Michel Platini , the former Uefa president, has launched a criminal complaint against Fifa president Gianni Infantino in French courts, just days before the World Cup commences.
- Platini alleges that Infantino and other individuals actively worked to exclude him from the race for the Fifa presidency, with Infantino being the primary instigator.
- This legal action follows a previous ethics probe in 2015 where Platini was banned by Fifa for eight years, later reduced to four, concerning a payment received from Sepp Blatter.
- Platini consistently maintained that the two million Swiss francs payment from Blatter was legitimate back pay for advisory work he conducted between 1998 and 2002.
- Despite the Fifa ban, Platini and Blatter were acquitted of criminal charges related to the payment by Swiss federal criminal courts in 2022 and subsequently by the appeals court in 2025.
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