Platini plans comeback, legal fight after FIFA ban expires

NYON, Switzerland - Four years after a ban for financial wrongdoing thwarted his chances of becoming FIFA president, Michel Platini on Tuesday became free to work in soccer again.

However, the former UEFA president - who was once seen as the heir apparent to FIFA's Sepp Blatter - said he is still unsure where and when he will return to the game that has continued to dominate his life after his stellar playing career with France.

"I have some idea, but it's difficult to speak today," Platini told Associated Press about his future plans, hours before the ban was set to expire.

Any comeback into a senior role would likely force him to first pay FIFA a fine of 60,000 Swiss francs ($60,300) that is three years overdue.

Platini is still challenging that fine in court and continues to dispute the allegations that led to his four-year ban from all soccer activities.

The charges of receiving an irregular payment and wrongful pension entitlement approved by Blatter derailed Platini's hopes of succeeding his former mentor as the head of global soccer.

Now 64, Platini looks hardly to have aged at all during that ban, which became the longest vacation of his storied life in the sport.

The former France superstar said he is keeping all options open, but pointed out that the next elections for top roles at FIFA, UEFA and the French soccer association are "some years ahead".

In the Paris headquarters of the French federation, 77-year-old Noel Le Graet, recently promoted by UEFA to a seat on FIFA's ruling council, is in office until 2021.

"It's not now," said Platini, who captained and coached the national team, and organized the 1998 World Cup won by France at home. "I have time, if I come back to this."

His current focus is on what is likely the last legal fight against allegations that were upheld by two FIFA judicial bodies, the Court of Arbitration for Sport and Switzerland's supreme court.

Platini has challenged the Swiss federal ruling at the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, and "that means I don't pay this fine" until a ruling is issued.

That ongoing sense of injustice, along with his unpaid debt, could cause FIFA's ethics committee to impede his return.

"They will try to use what they want so that I don't come back, I am sure," Platini suggested of soccer's world body, which has been led since 2016 by his former general secretary at UEFA, Gianni Infantino.

FIFA declined to comment on its rules enforcing payment of fines but confirmed that Blatter paid his fine of 50,000 Swiss francs ($50,250) first imposed in 2015.

Blatter is serving a six-year FIFA ban, upheld by CAS, for authorizing a $2-million payment to Platini in 2011 as backdated salary for work as his adviser a decade earlier.

Blatter also approved extending his former protege's FIFA pension plan, that added more than $1 million by 2015.

Court documents state Platini later asked to be credited with four extra pension years for his time as an adviser, when the scheme was intended only for executive committee members.

"I never asked for the pension, it was Blatter who gave me that," Platini said Monday.

The Frenchman also weighed in on several other issues concerning global soccer, saying his career after playing was "something that I never expected".

"In the end, I was not so unlucky. It was nice. If now I do nothing, it will be nice too," he said. "I am someone who always lives with destiny. What happens, happens."

Associated Press