By Andrew Warshaw
September 17 – The FIFA staffer who penned a 1,400-word document questioning Michel Platini’s credentials for taking over from Sepp Blatter has quit the organisation.
A FIFA statement has confirmed that Thomas Renggli resigned on September 1 after European football’s governing body complained about an alleged smear campaign against its president and raised the matter with FIFA’s ethics investigator.
Renggli’s unbylined piece, entitled ‘Platini: Skeletons in the closet’, suggested the Frenchman’s links to Qatar would not make him an appropriate president of FIFA and was circulated anonymously to Swiss and German newspapers. It later emerged that Renggli, a former editor of FIFA’s weekly magazine who had apparently moved on to a job as a member of Blatter’s personal staff, was the author.
Platini has made no secret of the fact that he voted for Qatar to host the 2022 World Cup or that he met with French president Nicolas Sarkozy and Qatar’s Emir in Paris prior to the vote. But there are also questions over Platini’s son, Laurent, who started working for Qatar Sports Investments, an arm of the Qatari government and owners of Paris Saint-Germain, in November 2011.
He is currently CEO of Burrda Sport, a Geneva-based sportswear manufacturer with ties to Qatar and has denied there is any link between his employment and his father’s connections. Renggli’s article stated that Platini “was one of Europe’s most skilful players of all time. But is he great enough to be FIFA President? Anyone taking one look in the direction of Qatar can have only one answer: No.”
His departure from FIFA follows that three months ago of communications chief Walter De Gregorio who was guilty of an apparent faux pas in a Swiss television interview when he joked: “The FIFA president, Sepp Blatter, the director of communications and the general secretary are all sitting in a car – who is driving? The police.” Ironically de Gregorio was hired by Blatter deliberately to bring a more open, less guarded approach to communications. He had always privately indicated that he would leave FIFA at the same time as Blatter, who steps down on February 26 next year, but ended up going eight months prematurely.
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