May 29 – A tub-thumping Michel Platini has vowed to return to football after Swiss prosecutors said no evidence has been found “so far” in their investigation into possible financial wrongdoing.
Platini was banned from all football-related activities for eight years, later reduced first to six years then to four, following that infamous $2 million “disloyal payment” he received from then-FIFA president Sepp Blatter in 2011 for work he did a decade earlier, with apparently no paperwork to show for the deal.
No criminal case was ever opened against Platini whose suspension technically runs until October 2019. Both he and Blatter have consistently denied any wrongdoing but Court of Arbitration for Sport judges refused to overturn the bans on both of them.
The former UEFA chief, whose ban stopped him going for the FIFA presidency and who has challenged his sanction through every available legal channel, says he hopes FIFA will now “have the courage and the decency to lift my suspension” after what he said was “the end of a long nightmare for my family and those close to me”.
“My legal advisers will take all the necessary measures to ensure the FIFA suspension is lifted,” he added.
A Platini comeback would represent one of the most intriguing and unexpected developments in football politics but the former French captain and national coach insists it will happen – somewhere, some time.
“I will come back: where, when, how? It’s too early to say. But I will come back into football. Football is my life and I deny anyone the right to deprive me of my life.”
“What annoys me more than anything is that my grandchildren, typing my name in Wikipedia, can read in the last line: ‘Michel Platini, banned from football by the authorities for undue payment.’ After all I did for football.”
It may not be quite so straightforward, however. The Swiss public prosecutor’s office said that although no evidence had been found up to now to warrant bringing charges against Platini, the investigation was “not completely over”.
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