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International Football

UEFA President Michel Platini: FIFA Had No Money To Pay Me

UEFA President Michel Platini claimed on Tuesday that he had to wait nine years for a £1.35M payment from FIFA "because the world governing body did not have the money," according to Matt Dickinson of the LONDON TIMES. Given FIFA’s resources, the explanation for the long delay "is unlikely to quell growing concerns over that payment" for his work as an aide to FIFA President Sepp Blatter. Platini insisted that "he was only a witness" but Swiss Attorney-General Michael Lauber said Platini is "in between a suspect and an accused person." Platini insists that "he was due the money" for work between '98 and '02 but that FIFA’s financial predicament at the time meant that 2M Swiss Franc ($2.1M) remained outstanding. Platini said, "Mr. Blatter informed me when I started my role as his adviser that it was not initially possible to pay the totality of my salary because of FIFA’s financial situation at that time. I never doubted, however, that the remaining amount owed to me would be paid eventually, so I did not actively pursue it." Yet, he did not explain why it was in '11 that he suddenly remembered to chase FIFA for the money "that had been owed for nine years." And while it is true that FIFA "suffered financially around the turn of the millennium with the collapse of ISL, its marketing partner, and was braced to make a deficit, it still had a surplus in its accounts from 1999 to 2002 and thereafter" (LONDON TIMES, 9/30). The London INDEPENDENT reported the timing of the payment to Platini in February '11 "raised questions as it came just after the Frenchman had met Asian football chief Mohamed bin Hammam, who had urged him to stand against Blatter, and two months before UEFA gave its backing to Blatter." Platini: "The fact that this payment was made a few months before the FIFA presidential elections is irrelevant since I never had any plans of becoming a candidate." The Frenchman said he was "calm and totally serene" about the investigation "since I don't have reasons to be concerned" (INDEPENDENT, 9/30). REUTERS' Simon Evans wrote Platini "is running in the FIFA election to replace Blatter in February and said his case did not change his ambition." He said, "I am still determined to present myself as a candidate for the FIFA presidency so I can introduce the governance reforms that are necessary to restore the order and credibility to world football. There is no doubt about my integrity. I have done nothing wrong" (REUTERS, 9/29).

NO FIFA LAWYERS: REUTERS' Mark Hosenball wrote Blatter agreed with the organization's lawyers that he will not use official FIFA platforms or personnel to issue statements in his defense "in response to an investigation by Swiss prosecutors." Two sets of lawyers, one representing Blatter individually and another representing FIFA as an organization, agreed that such statements "would be more appropriate coming from Blatter's lawyers" than from FIFA personnel. The lawyers want to avoid a potential conflict of interest while FIFA itself "looks into allegations of criminal mismanagement" (REUTERS, 9/30).

WHAT'S THE PROBLEM? In London, Oliver Brown opined if Platini is the answer, then FIFA "truly has not the faintest clue what the problem is." Platini "is so enmeshed in the putrid power structures in Zurich" that he offers not, as he has the brass neck to claim, a "breath of fresh air" to clean up the most powerful office in the game, "but a toxic taint by association." The FA, which met on Wednesday to reconsider its endorsement of Platini, has "some pressing questions to answer." Why, "when he was a party to Blatter’s ghastly system of patronage," did it "rubber-stamp his credentials so readily?" Why was it "seduced by his diplomatic charms more easily than the lady, she of the fluttering eyelashes, in that Ferrero Rocher advert?" The problem with Platini, who is fluent in five languages, is "he speaks none of them so brilliantly as he does Fifa-ese." The further he "is drawn into Blatter’s tangled web, the more he reaches for this hideous argot of evasion and obfuscation" (TELEGRAPH, 9/30).

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