NYON: Sepp Blatter is a “wounded” president of FIFA but Michel Platini will help him try to rebuild the world federation’s credibility in his remaining three years in office writes KEIR RADNEDGE.
Platini made that promise in responding yet again to Blatter’s recent comment that he would make a good next president of FIFA.
The Frenchman said: “I do not know about this. For one thing, the election is three years away and Blatetr will finish his present term. What is important for me is to be able to help him leave through the front door and that, at that time, the football world is a better place.”
Refuting accusations of corruption against Blatter, Platini added: “All the recent business does not involve him. He isn’t guilty of corruption. There has been, perhaps, an issue of running world football and FIFA which is out-of-date. It’s an issue of structure and organisation. Sepp is trying to change the system and change the people but it’s complicated. I give him full credict for trying to do this and I will try to help him because he is wounded.”
Elsewhere in an interview with French newspaper Le Monde, Platini reiterated his personal sense of alarm over the level of club debts and the need to take effective action with the introduction of Financial Fair Play.
He said: “It is obvious that if the rules that apply to other commercial enterprises applied to football long ago that football would have gone bankrupt. Clubs have always lived above the law and their debts because they were allowed to do so. Now they know there are rules that must be respected – and they could be punished from 2013.
“These sanctions could range from a prohibition of transfers to exclusion from the Champions League.”