InvestigationThe suspension of the former player, removed from international football since 2015, ends Monday at midnight. Back on years of maneuvers that led to his fall.
"Now, I have Michel by the balls. " This day of January 2011, Sepp Blatter rejoices. The Swiss President of the very powerful International Football Federation (FIFA) has just shown a friend and his office a letter and an invoice sent by Michel Platini, his counterpart at the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) since 2007.
In these documents, Mr Platini claims two million Swiss francs (1.8 million euros). This sum corresponds to a salary remaining from the time (1998-2002) when the Frenchman was his advisor. Nine years after the end of his mission, he asked for his balance and the boss of the world football has offered to send a letter and an invoice to Markus Kattner, FIFA's chief financial officer.
"My suspension was due to the fact that Blatter, who wanted to stay, and some FIFA officials, who wanted to defend their very good soup, did not want to see me as FIFA President. »Michel Platini
M. Platini still does not know it: he was mistaken about the sum mentioned. Mr. Blatter understood this, and he knows that this mistake could be fatal to the former player, whom he now perceives as a political opponent, anxious to succeed him. Mr. Blatter also knows that the Swiss justice does not joke with the bills: the slightest difference in amount, even to the disadvantage of the beneficiary (this is the case of Michel Platini) can give rise to a procedure. In the immediate future, Mr. Blatter keeps preciously these documents.
Nearly eight years have passed since this scene. Eight years partly marked, for Michel Platini, by a long disgrace. Having been stripped of international football since 2015, he saw this stalemate come to an end on Monday, October 7th at midnight. For him, the time has come to redo the film, and to try to understand how, and because of whom, he fell like this. "My suspension is due to the fact that Blatter, who wanted to stay, and some FIFA officials, who wanted to defend their very good soup, did not want to see me FIFA president," does he assure World.
In fact, if he had supported Mr Blatter in his election as head of the world organization in 1998, his relationship with him deteriorated from 2013. In that year, Mr Blatter dazzled French succession but prepares, in reality, its renewal for a fifth term. Their break is consumed on May 28, 2015, the day after an anti-corruption raid conducted, at the request of US justice, before the FIFA Election Congress in Zurich. Mr Platini asks " eye to eye " to his friend "Sepp" to resign. This one refuses. Only the media and judicial pressure will compel him, a few days later, to abdicate.
