Michel Platini has protested his innocence of any wrongdoing over the £1.35m “disloyal payment” he received from Fifa and said he still believes he deserves to become the next president of world football’s governing body.
Platini, currently suspended from his role as the Uefa president after his 90-day ban by Fifa’s ethics committee while they investigate the 2011 payment, told the Daily Telegraph: “I am, in all humility, the most able to run world football … even if I cannot go out campaigning, I fully consider myself a candidate.”
Of his suspension and the payment for consultancy work the Frenchman had provided to Fifa in 2002, he added: “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.”
Platini, 60, did not stand in the 2011 election against Sepp Blatter, but would have been the clear favourite of the seven candidates to replace the disgraced president in the forthcoming election. And then the scandal broke over the payment.
“I don’t want to believe in conspiracy theories,” said Platini. “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.”
The election to find a successor to Blatter as Fifa president will take place on 26 February 2016, with Sheikh Salman al-Khalifa of Bahrain, the South African Tokyo Sexwale and Prince Ali bin al-Hussein of Jordan now among the leading candidates after Platini’s fall from grace.
