By Andrew Warshaw
September 30 – English FA officials meeting today are expected to discuss whether to stick by their decision to support embattled UEFA boss Michel Platini in next February’s FIFA presidential election.
With less than four weeks to go until nominations close, Platini has come out fighting after being dragged into the FIFA corruption scandal, with mounting uncertainty over his candidacy as a result of being named by Swiss investigators as the recipient in 2011 of a suspicious payment of SFr2 million authorised by Sepp Blatter for work carried out between 1999 and 2002.
In a third attempt to rescue his bid to take over from Blatter, Platini sought to put the record straight in a wide-ranging interview with AFP, saying he had been informed by Blatter that it was not possible to pay him in full in 2002 because of FIFA’s precarious financial position at the time.
Platini insisted the payment had nothing to do with the fact that UEFA backed Blatter for re-election in 2011 and that the timing was pure co-incidence. But the fact that the front-runner to take over at FIFA is being treated by the Swiss authorities as a cross “between a witness and an accused person” has placed his loyal European federations in a tricky situation.
FIFA’s ethics committee are looking into whether to ban Platini or let him off through lack of evidence, a ruling that could take several weeks either way. FIFA also has strict electoral regulations and it remains to be seen whether Platini would fulfill all the conditions in the light of recent developments.
Individual UEFA federations have so far made little comment as to whether they will stand by their man next February but the English FA are expected to debate the issue at a board meeting today.
Last month, well before Platini became embroiled in current mess, the English FA re-iterated that it would support him even though it nominated Prince Ali bin al-Hussein last time.
“We supported Prince Ali last time because he was the only reform candidate,” said Martin Glenn who recently took over as the FA’s chief executive.
“He took Blatter to a second round but it’s a different world now. We’ve got the head of UEFA putting his hat in the ring. We think there is immense value in supporting a UEFA candidate.”
“We know what his agenda is …it will place English football well to have a guy like Michel running FIFA,” Glenn told reporters on the fringes of the Soccerex forum in Manchester. “It’s an assessment of whether, when circumstances change, which individual will make more or less the right decisions. That’s our view with Platini. We think he’s got huge experience. He talks about football in a way that makes sense.”
But with the circumstances having changed again, it will fascinating to see how the English now proceed.
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