Michel Platini claims he is “hurt” given “everything I’ve done” in football after being released without charge following a day of police questioning into possible corruption over the awarding of the 2022 World Cup.
The 63-year-old spent Tuesday in Nanterre, just outside Paris, answering questions for over 15 hours about the circumstances surrounding Qatar’s shock success nine years ago in winning the right to stage the competition.
Platini was allowed to walk free just after midnight and revealed he was also asked about various other tournaments including the 2018 World Cup — the hosts of which were determined at the same time as Qatar — Euro 2016 and even the Qatari takeover of Paris St Germain in 2011.
The former France midfielder was Uefa president from 2007 until 2016, when he stepped down after being banned from football for six years after receiving a payment from then FIFA president Sepp Blatter, a sentence later reduced to four after an appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport.
And Platini, who was one of the finest midfielders of his generation, winning Euro 1984 with France and the Ballon D’Or in three consecutive years during the 1980s, claimed he thought he would be questioned yesterday as a witness.
“I arrived and I was immediately taken into custody,” he said. “It hurts for everything I can think of, everything I’ve done. It was long, but given the number of questions it could not be different. [I feel] at peace. I feel totally foreign to any of these matters. This is an old affair, you know it, we explained it. I’ve always expressed myself with full transparency in all the newspapers. That’s it, it goes on, they investigate, they search.”
Sophie Dion, a sports advisor in former French president Nicolas Sarkozy’s administration was also detained and later released. Former secretary general of the Elysee presidential palace under Sarkozy, Claude Gueant, was questioned as a free witness.
Platini’s lawyer, William Bourdon, described his client’s arrest as “a lot of noise for nothing”, adding: “He gave his testimony by answering as sincerely and precisely as he could. We do not believe in any way that Platini (left) can be considered as a suspect for anything, either yesterday or today or tomorrow. So, for us, this affair is over.”
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