Platini: There are people who don't want me to be FIFA president and frame me, and I want them to be punished

On 18 June, Platini, 63, was elected president of UEFA in 2007 and remained in office until 2015, when he was "grounded" by the FIFA Ethics Committee, and then in July 2017, switzerland's supreme court confirmed that it upheld the verdict in a bribery case against former UEFA president Platini, who had been "grounded" for four years.

Speaking to reporters before being detained by the French judiciary, Platini said: "I'm not sure if I'll ever return to football, but I believe it must be a conspiracy by the Court of Arbitration for Sport and FIFA, because I simply can't defend myself throughout the allegations, and their allegations about corruption and bribery and other aspects are non-existent." Now it's different, I'm going to catch the people who framed me and prevented me from becoming FIFA president and let them get the punishment they deserve. ”

【The following is the content of the conversation】

<b>If it is a conspiracy, who is behind it? </b>

"I already have a clue, I hope to catch all of them, but at the moment I have no conclusive evidence, so I can only make charges against unidentified people, but one thing I am sure of, they are all insiders: FIFA and the International Court of Arbitration for Sport, who mentioned it to me as early as the last time I chaired the meeting as UEFA president in Monte Carlo in 2015..."

<b>Who is it? </b>

"I have to keep it a secret, sorry I can't make my name public."

<b>UEFA or FIFA? </b>

"Not UEFA..."

<b>So what did he tell you specifically? </b>

"Someone wanted to stop me from becoming FIFA president. Because my son used to work for a Qatari company, FIFA received payment records that were regularly reported to the tax authorities.

<b>This payment record changes your life</b>

"It's all about being able to work with FIFA in the past. In March 1998, Blatter promised to pay me, and by August he had made a point of reminding me that I had finished paying and that things were going on. This is the money I deserve, what can I do? Do you say, 'Oh, you're so out of sight that you don't have to give me money.' ’？ For me the story ended after I received the money. Do you really think I'm going to sacrifice my entire career, the rest of my life, for that little bit of €2 million? The story goes on for a while, and maybe I should have asked for the money sooner, but I don't regret it, I have another thing to regret..."

<b>What's up? </b>

"I shouldn't have wasted my time and energy on sports courts because it doesn't work at all. I should immediately turn to civil court, just because if you do it at FIFA, you're out. ”

<b>Didn't you suspect that this was exactly what Blatter wanted you to do? </b>

"I don't know..."

<b>Do you think there are still Infantino among those who framed you? </b>

"I can't imagine treating him so well when he was my secretary at UEFA and he could have done something like this to frame me, but I don't know... I don't know when it started, but I know that afterwards he did everything in his power to prevent me from returning to my post. Switzerland is small, everyone is talking about it, some people think Infantino knows something and might use it to denounce me, others say he and Lauber meet first. But no matter how soon after, Infantino came to me and told me he wanted to run. ”

<b>So how did you feel at the time? </b>

"I was surprised because in my opinion Infantino's election as FIFA president is neither legal nor trustworthy, and this kind of thing cannot be just a matter of decision-making. But he's a good Secretary-General, really. But a man who has been strenuously spurnful about FIFA over the past decade was later elected fifa president? A person who has been critical of women's football later hosted the Women's World Cup in Paris? I was more bullish on Salman (a rival who lost his race with Infantino in 2016). ”

<b>But Inventino was once your colleague</b>

"Yeah, he also made a big contribution to supporting me in fifa's presidency, maybe he wants to be UEFA president."

<b>When was the last time you saw each other? </b>

"At the 2016 election in Cheferin in Athens, he offered to shake my hand, but I said to him coldly: 'Do you mean to reach out and shake my hand?' ”

<b>So what's the relationship between you and Cheferin? </b>

"It's good, we communicate a lot, but he's now the chairman, and I shouldn't dictate his decisions.

<b>Did members of UEFA and FIFA help him? </b>

"There are some. After those allegations, they even said that I was involved in money laundering! All the British, the Americans, the Nordics were against me. Someone defended me, but all they said was a bunch of nonsense..."

<b>What about Blatter? </b>

"He was a good chairman and I thought so until 2013, but he was at the wrong time to push football into commercialisation and the timing of his exit and he embarrassed me. He told me he wouldn't be nominated again, and then he said that anyone but Platini could be president. ”

<b>Tell us what happened in Qatar. </b>

"Well, that's once and for all. No one forced me to do anything. I had lunch with Sarkozy and then met with the Qatari delegates. I had long since decided that I would vote for Russia and Qatar, and no one forced me to make a decision. Only Blatter told me to vote for Russia. ”

(Follow-up content will be added later, stay tuned)

(Iron Fist)