By Andrew Warshaw
September 9 – Michel Platini has been invited to say farewell to colleagues at next week’s UEFA presidential election, potentially violating his four-year ban imposed by FIFA.
Platini has been invited to Athens by Angel Villar Llona, who as first vice-president has been replacing him on a part-time basis for the last 10 months and who will chair the extraordinary congress in the Greek capital.
UEFA is making no official comment on its own position other than to confirm the personal invitation sent by Villar. Reports suggest Platini will pay his own way but were he to take the stage to hand over to his successor in person, he would be breaching the terms of his ban – as would UEFA’s top brass – prompting almost certain disciplinary action from FIFA’s ethics committee.
According to the French daily l’Equipe, Platini recently expressed the hope of stepping down “in front of UEFA’s 55 national associations who did me the honour of electing me three times. I want to look them in the eye and tell them I have never betrayed their confidence.”
It is not known how or where Platini will make an appearance or whether Villar, who pulled out of the election race himself last week, made a formal approach to FIFA for the Frenchman to attend. If he didn’t, all concerned could be in hot water since any official request must go through the ethics committee’s adjudicatory chamber and Insideworldfootball understands no such request has been made.
This suggests Platini will meet the federations in private though it must be questionable whether even that would be in breach of his ban which covers “all football-related activity”.
One person Platini may not be too keen to meet is his previous number two who now occupies the role he so coveted. Gianni Infantino, for so long Platini’s right-hand man at UEFA, will attend the extraordinary election along with the heads of every confederation. But it is understood the FIFA president has hardly picked up the phone to speak to his previous boss since their respective roles changed so dramatically.
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