By Andrew Warshaw
October 13 – Revelations that Michel Platini had no written contract over the SFr2m Swiss francs payment that led to his provisional suspension threatens to cause a split among UEFA’s top brass when they meet on Thursday to discuss whether to continue supporting the Frenchman’s bid to succeed Sepp Blatter as FIFA president.
Both Platini and Blatter, each suspended for 90 days, are widely reported to have told investigators that the payment in question, made in 2011 for work carried out nine years beforehand, was an oral agreement.
Even if that is incorrect and there was a written deal, Swiss law apparently states that any claims for payments must be settled within five years of the original agreement.
The Swiss attorney general has launched criminal proceedings against Blatter into what was described as a “disloyal payment” to Platini. That was followed by their respective suspensions by FIFA’s ethics committee and both have formally appealed to clear their names.
An emergency meeting of FIFA’s executive committee on October 20 is due to discuss whether the election on February 26 should be postponed. But UEFA meets ahead of that, this Thursday, and there are already growing signs that support for their president is waning and that another European candidate may be considered to contest the election whenever it takes place.
Denmark’s UEFA executive committee member, Allan Hansen, was quoted by Danish newspaper Ekstra Bladet as saying “we can no longer support” Platini if it does transpire there was no written contract over the payment.
Platini has insisted he will be cleared of all the allegations, describing them as “based on mere semblances” and “astonishingly vague” though he himself has still been somewhat vague over why he received the payment so late. Blatter’s lawyers, for their part, state he will prove he “did not engage in any misconduct, criminal or otherwise”.
But Hansen said: “I was deeply disappointed when the story of the two million francs appeared. It raises many questions to which we have still not received a reply. I hope we will have one on Thursday. Such a payment requires there to have been a contract and must also appear in FIFA’s own accounts.”
UEFA has a tricky dilemma on its hands. With the deadline for nominations for presidential candidates slated for October 26 and with FIFA not meeting until next week to decide on any election switch, does Europe allow Platini to buy time pending an appeals committee/Court of Arbitration for Sport ruling? Or does it make a clean break and go for another candidate in case Platini loses and is maybe banned for even longer? Or does it sit on the fence for the time being?
Everything is in the timing though much depends on the majority view of the executive committee and UEFA’s 54 national federations who have been summoned to headquarters in Nyon near Geneva where they are expected to be presented with a much more detailed explanation from Platini’s lawyers than has so far been forthcoming. Such is the sensitivity of the hearing that media invited to a press conference afterwards have been advised they will not be allowed to gain access to the building until 30 minutes before it takes place.
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