By Andrew Warshaw in Paris
June 9 – Will he attend or won’t he? The jury seems to still be out over whether Michel Platini will be showing his face at Euro 2016 in his own backyard despite his four-year ban.
The former UEFA president still has a number of friends in high places and they would love nothing more than to invite him as guest.
Platini will almost certainly not attend Friday’s opening game of a tournament he was so keen to expand to 24 teams while in charge of UEFA and which was to have been the crowning glory of his nine years at the helm.
Having resigned from the leadership after failing to clear his name over that infamous “disloyal payment” of SFr2 million, the Frenchman suffered the painful realisation that he would more than likely be forced to miss an event with which he became so synonymous as one of Europe’s greatest ever players the last time it was staged in his homeland.
But UEfA’s acting general secretary Theodore Theodoridis told a press conference UEFA’s top brass were now considering whether to issue a formal invite after approaching FIFA’s ethics committee for guidance.
“We received a clarification from [FIFA ethics judge] Mr Hans-Joachim Eckert saying Michel Platini can be invited in a personal capacity as long as he doesn’t perform any official function,” said Theodoridis.
“The executive committee will make a decision about whether to invite him or not. I don’t expect he will be there on Friday.”
Eckert’s office quickly reacted to Theodoridis’ version of events. ”Mr. Platini is currently banned from all football-related activities,” said a statement. ”He is not able to perform any activity that could create the appearance that he is still acting as a football official. Mr. Platini may, however, attend matches of the UEFA Euro 2016 in a personal capacity.”
That appears to suggest that mixing with his former colleagues or anyone he used to work might constitute “official” but it remains something of a grey area.
Bizarrely, with former general secretary Gianni Infantino now running the show at FIFA, UEFA enter the Euros without either a full-time president or number two. With the presidential election to choose Platini’s successor not until mid-September, Angel Maria Villar, UEFA’s less than charismatic senior vice-president, will present the trophy on July 10.
Theodoridis said: “Not having a president in place is not ideal but it’s a situation we have to live with and we have proved through several months that UEFA is strong enough to cope with situations like this. We are concentrating on having a successful celebration of football.”
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