MICHEL PLATINI EXCLUSIVE: The day the UEFA president went toe-to-toe with his fiercest critic



We want to like Michel Platini. Of course we do. We’re football men, he’s a football man. We loved the beautiful game, he played the beautiful game. Haven’t we been saying for years that there are not enough football people at the top? And then what does he do? He ruins it.

He votes for Qatar, he expands the European Championship to 24 teams. He spreads the competition across an entire continent in 2020.



And he introduces financial fair play, a raft of regulations that plays into the hands of the established club elite, now developing a stranglehold on domestic football in Europe.



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Toe-to-toe: Michel Platini (left) and Martin Samuel met at a Park Lane hotel to discuss everything football

Football man? Platini played the beautiful game and has become a controversial figure as UEFA president

' Financial fair play is to protect the club, it is to protect the club from bankruptcy, from the problems that they will see in the future. It’s not a matter to be more competitive. '



Ostensibly to save the sport from its improvident self, Platini has instead contrived to create a platinum card aristocracy, unchallenged and unchallengeable. What gives?



'I know you are not very soft with the UEFA president,' says Platini, towards the end of our meeting. I reply that this is true, but I do respect him for answering the questions.



Actually, he doesn’t always do that. I should have said I respected him for giving up his time.

He could have chosen a less confrontational companion over coffee in his suite at the Grosvenor House Hotel on Park Lane.



At the Europa League final, a UEFA official told me that Platini was aware of the criticism that appeared in these pages, and wanted to confront it, head on. He didn’t always do that, either.



As always, Platini came across as a man who could identify the big problems, but wasn’t so careful around the small details needed to solve them.

So what do I think of Platini now? It was much as I expected. I thought I would like him, and I did. I thought he was wrong about an awful lot of issues, and I still do.

Where I have misjudged the man is in believing he has such great power. I thought he could do stuff.

He can’t do stuff. He is buffeted from all sides by the wealthy clubs, the national associations, even his friends at FIFA. He spends too much time trying to stay in with everybody.

Buffeted: Platini's power within European football has been overstated in the past

Standing firm: The former France international says he does not regret voting for a Qatar World Cup

'I can’t do things that I want. If you think I can, it isn’t true'

He has a lot of ideas, but the only ones that come to fruition are those that chime with the wealthy vested interests – like financial fair play.



‘I can’t do things that I want,’ he says, during a discussion about technology and referees. ‘If you think I can, it isn’t true.’



In that moment, he sounds rather glum. He explains that, having accepted his idea to have extra officials behind the goal, FIFA won’t allow these additional assistants to move their arms.

'The referee communicates, but FIFA cancels that,' says Platini.



'The officials are forbidden by FIFA to sign that it is a corner. He stands like this. [Puts arms straight down by his side] He can move his feet only. He can’t do nothing because he is forbidden by FIFA.



'Fans say “look at these people, they are not moving, they are doing nothing, why are they here? They can’t do this, they can’t do that, they can’t do nothing”.

'But they cannot communicate because they have not got the permit of FIFA to say something.'

At a press conference on the eve of the 2012 European Championship in Warsaw last year, the real Platini could be detected.



He is a man who spends a lot of time being asked to relive the glory days. He goes everywhere to a fanfare, one of the greatest footballers of the post-war era, but increasingly of late he is then pinned down on thornier issues. It makes him uncomfortable.



Last year, he was tetchy about racism and exorbitant hotel prices in Ukraine. This year controversy surrounds his vote for Qatar in 2022 and financial fair play.



Here to help? Platini believes clubs like Rangers and Portsmouth could 'disappear' given their financial woes

It seemed the best place to start. The charge is that in trying to apply fairness to football’s finances by linking permitted spending to the balance sheet, UEFA have lost sight of the need for competition.

Platini does not even bother denying this.

‘Financial fair play is to protect the club, it is to protect the club from the bankrupt,’ he says, ‘from the problems that they will see in the future. It’s not a matter to be more competitive. Financial fair play is to put regulation. If you want to buy a Ferrari, if you have the money, you buy a Ferrari; if you don’t have the money, you can’t buy the Ferrari. In football if you do not have the money, you can buy the Ferrari, the player and you pay him and everything, and you win – cheating.

'That is not correct. My job is to regulate this situation. It’s not to have a better competition, it’s to protect the club.



'Glasgow Rangers, Portsmouth and many others, they are in big bankrupt and they will disappear.



'That was my point. But this is also very interesting and it could be a reflection for me next time. To put more competition.'

Unstoppable? Olympiakos (left) have won 15 of the last 17 titles in Greece thanks to Champions League funds

This is a familiar theme with Platini – the work in progress.



Financial fair play, the additional referees’ assistants, dull qualifying groups when the European Championship finals expand to 24 teams, everything is in the melting pot.



It allows him to tiptoe away from the specifics of an argument, by promising to consider change. If the same rich club wins the league for the next 10 years, he will address the problem, he says.



‘If the bidding is reopened, I will still vote for Qatar... Everybody knows my vote and nobody disturbs me and I have no problem of corruption, no problem of ideas, finished ’

Yet Olympiakos have won the top league in Greece 15 out of the last 17 seasons, and BATE Borisov are now on a run of seven straight title wins in Belarus thanks to Champions League money.

How long could such a run last in a major European league before Platini acts?

'Don’t forget, it is the beginning of something, it’s not the end,’ he soothes. ‘We can do all things. We can do many things.'

But he can’t.

One of the things he could do is alter the distribution of the Champions League money, to spread it through the domestic leagues rather than have it concentrated on a tiny band of elite clubs.



Yet when this point is raised, it becomes frighteningly obvious the extent to which he is under the thumb of the powerful.

‘It is a little more complicated because there was a fight some years ago with the clubs and UEFA, the G14,’ he says.

‘And I destroy G14 but one of the conditions is that we are not looking for the distribution of money from the clubs for some years. We have a memorandum of understanding.

'The money is received by the competition for the clubs, and we give to the clubs.



'I think it’s not possible for me to decide where is going the money to the clubs.



'But if the European Clubs’ Association decided that there is a better redistribution of the money, another distribution, I will follow them. But it is their money, it is up to them.



Ideas man: Platini is responsible for a number of big changes to the sport in recent years

'I don’t want to have a big fight with the clubs like in the past. We can do nothing without permission of the clubs.



'If we don’t agree, we stop the discussion.'

But the powerful clubs are never going to vote to redistribute the money.

'They can vote,' he continues.



‘There is a company they can vote, the poor. The small clubs they can vote, then the people can decide.



'It’s our competition, but the clubs don’t think it is our competition.



'My job is to protect clubs from going bankrupt'

'They think that it’s their competition, that we organise their competition. And, man, it was a big fight from the beginning, from 10 years, from 15 years with G14, with the clubs that say, “it’s our money, we have to organise our money”.



'We make a deal six years ago to the G14 and they say “OK Michel, but for the moment, we don’t touch the distribution of the money”.'

How long has the deal got to go?

'I have to speak with [Karl-Heinz] Rummenigge,’ the most powerful man in European football concludes.



'I don’t want to open the floor of a public debate on that because, you know, it’s complicated. I have to do that quietly, secretly with the people of the clubs.'

One can only imagine how long that conversation will last. Karl-Heinz Rummenigge was a great footballer, too, but now he is the chairman of the ECA and chief executive of Bayern Munich.



No go: Karl-Heinz Rummenigge (right) is chairman of the ECA and chief executive of Bayern Munich

For all the praise German football has received this week, Munich are not in the business of wealth redistribution.



And Platini is being disingenuous anyway. The last agreement between UEFA and the ECA was signed in 2012 and runs until 2018. Surely he can’t have forgotten. Yet so much in Platini’s world seems vague, haphazard.



One of the key figures in financial fair play is Jean-Luc Dehaene, the former Prime Minister of Belgium and chairman of Dexia Bank.



The irony of having a man whose financial institution required two government bailouts measured in billions and whose share price fell from £13.38 on December 31, 2001 to 6p on December 31, 2012, appears lost on Platini.



This is how the conversation went.

Lest we forget: Platini was a delight to watch when playing for France and Juventus (below right)

Samuel: ‘One of the people who you have got in charge of financial fair play is Jean Luc Dehaene. He was in charge of a bank that needed to be bailed out £5.18billion. Not Euros, pounds. How can he be in charge of financial fair play? He was meant to come here to speak and the bank went skint on that day and he had to cancel.



'How can he be telling a football club, this is how you run your football club?’



Platini: ‘What do you want I answer?’



Samuel: ‘Just an answer. How?’

Platini: ‘OK. I miss a penalty one day and I score a goal the day after.’

Samuel: ‘It’s a bit bigger than that, Michel, come on.’

Platini: ‘OK, it’s not an answer. But he is at the beginning of the procedure, he has a contract for some years and we will see at the end of his contract, what we can do. But he is from the beginning, let us finish the procedure and then we will see what’s happened. But he was Prime Minister of Belgium with big success. OK, he lost one goal, he is not a bad player because he lost one goal.’

Samuel: ‘His bank lost £9.73billion.’

Platini: ‘OK, two goals.’

Samuel: ‘Johan Lokhorst is also on it. He was a director of Lotus Bakeries, they were £22.9million in debt.’

Platini: ‘Perhaps because they know how to make debts they will be better at the financial fair play.’

Samuel: ‘I think you are clutching at straws there, Michel.’

You’d pay good money for that over the West End.



Samuel on Platini: Sportsmail's columnist has been scathing of the Frenchman's ideas in the past

' Qatar never received the World Cup – they run five times with Morocco, one time with Egypt, and they never received it. The presentation of Qatar and Russia was the same. So why not have the right to receive the World Cup?'

We have not got space for the full transcript here. We’ve barely got room to reveal who Platini would vote for if the 2022 World Cup, at the moment to be held in Qatar, was put back on the market again. You’ve guessed it: Qatar once more. (Rests head on table. Bangs head gently on table.)

‘I am the only guy in the petition of Qatar and Russia who said for who he voted,’ Platini protests. ‘I was the only guy who said I voted for Qatar and I voted for Russia – instead to say “oh Michel, correct Michel, you are very open and democratic”, everybody criticised me because I vote for Qatar and for Russia. I vote for Qatar for the same reason that I vote for Russia, because there are some places that have never received the World Cup.



'And for the development of the football, it is very important.



'For me, this was not a big choice. Because you have Japan who have received the World Cup eight years before, then there was United States, they received the World Cup 15 years before, and Australia and Qatar.



'Qatar like all the Arab countries never received the World Cup – they run five times with Morocco, one time with Egypt, and they never received.



'The presentation of Qatar and Russia was the same. So why we not have the right to receive the World Cup?



Pitching in: Platini handed over the Europa League trophy to Chelsea in Amsterdam

'I said I vote for Qatar because when I say that, I am free. I am not to go to see the President of Russia, the Prime Minister of England. Everybody know my vote and nobody disturb me and I have no problem of corruption, no problem of ideas, finished.

'And nobody came to see me. I am very quiet. You can imagine, when you have 15 bids and they all want to see you, they all want to propose to you and send visitors.



'We come to see you, our President want to see you, Mr Putin wants to see you, Mr Cameron want to see you, the Queen wants to see you.



'OK, OK. I say, don’t break me the balls. I am free and it’s finished. Stop. Is why always I want to announce my vote, then I am free and nobody comes to disturb me. Stop, let me in peace.

Untrue: Platini says he was not pressured by former France Prime Minister Nicolas Sarkozy (right)

'If the bidding process is reopened, Qatar will win another time. Why, if I vote for Qatar, why I have to change?



'I tell you why I still vote for Qatar, the same ideas of two years ago. It changes nothing. For me, changes nothing.'

Platini denied pressure had been applied by former Prime Minister of France, Nicolas Sarkozy, but he confirmed a lunch took place the month before the fateful vote between himself, Sarkozy and Qatari crown prince Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad bin Khalifa Al-Thani, who has subsequently ended up buying Paris St Germain.

' You know, for a long, long, long time there was no rules in football and it was always stupid Platini who would come with the rules. '



Platini even admits the meeting was intended to influence him. He said it didn’t influence him. He just happened to be voting that way anyway. Who knows?



There is an element of brazening out negative inspection, the way he dismissed Dehaene’s chequered past as if the collapse of a bank was comparable to failing to mark up at a corner.

Asked about the 2020 European Championship taking place across the continent, Platini glibly says that the cost for supporters will be less than Ukraine. Maybe it will, but so would space travel.



In Platini’s mind, the 2012 European Championship was a success, despite the eye-watering cost for fans. He doesn’t really do failure.



He similarly lauds his introduction of extra officials behind the goal, despite the fact that one missed a Ukrainian goal against England that had clearly crossed the line.

There are times, though, when Platini makes good sense.



He wants to change the seeding system of the Champions League, so that the domestic champions of major leagues get the advantage. He thinks it ridiculous that Manchester City, as champions, entered this year’s draw in pot two, while Arsenal, without a title since 2004, were seeded.



Ludicrous: Manchester City were in pot two for this season's Champions League

You too? Real Madrid found themselves in the same group as fellow champions City

Pot four? Champions League finalists Borussia Dortmund were also in the group

His arguments against technology, with goal-line cameras as the thin end of a large wedge, are also sound.



He even makes a lucid case for the 24-team European Championship by pointing out that with 16 entries in the Euros and 13 European teams qualifying for the World Cup, there is a risk the same national elite would play in the tournaments over and over again.



A pity he can’t see the danger of this being repeated in club football.

'You know, for long, long, long time there was no rules in football,' he says, 'and it was always stupid Platini who would come with the rules.



'But it’s not just to put rules, it’s football logic rules, ethic rules. Because, you know, football brings a lot of money. And from the moment there is lot of money, there is a lot of people, new people, they come to take the money.



Watertight? Platini makes strong arguments against cameras on the goal-line

'That is dangerous because these people they want to steal to make more money.

'They want to change everything, to do everything for money. That is dangerous.'

And that is how Platini sees himself, riding in on his white charger, with his rules and ideas and a big number 10 on his back to save the game that we love.



Except, feet on the table, nursing a bourbon in the saloon, is Karl-Heinz Rummenigge.