PARIS: Disgraced former UEFA president Michel Platini has launched a legal attempt in the Swiss courts to claim that he was framed over the infamous ‘disloyal payment’ from FIFA which led to him being banned from football for four years writes KEIR RADNEDGE.

Platini, at the time not only head of the European federation but a vice-president of the world governing body, was suspended in 2015 for having accepted a payment of $2m in February 2011 authorised by former FIFA president Sepp Blatter.

Blatter and Platini claimed the payment was for work undertaken by Platini for FIFA 10 years earlier.

The Swiss judicial authorities made Blatter the subject of criminal proceedings while Platini was registered as a concerned witness – a status  which was withdrawn last May.

Platini has always insisted on his innocence of impropriety despite his responsibility being upheld by the FIFA appeal committee, the Court of Arbitration for Sport and the Swiss Federal Court.

Now it is understood that last month he lodged a complaint against X for “slanderous denunciation” and “criminal conspiracy to commit the crime of slanderous denunciation” in the Paris civil courts.

His lawyer, Bertrand Repolt, told Reuters: “Now that the proceedings have come to an end in criminal cases, now that he has been put out of the question, we are trying to paint a picture of responsibilities and interests so that he can obtain compensation.”

Repolt said he was “confident” that he could find “who had an interest in revealing the information, denouncing, slandering Mr Platini.”

Platini’s ban ended his ambitions to stand for the FIFA presidency and also cost him the leadership of UEFA.

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