Michel Platini filed a lawsuit this Monday (8) against FIFA president Gianni Infantinofor “false reporting” and “influence trafficking”, in response to the case that in 2015 interrupted his rise as a leader, according to a statement sent to AFP.
The action, which also targets two former FIFA directors, includes Platini in the role of formal accuser in the criminal processwhich “will lead to the appointment of an investigating judge”, explains the former French national team player.
In 2018, and then in 2021, Platini had already filed complaints for the same caserespectively for false accusation against an unknown whistleblower and for influence peddling against Gianni Infantino, both forwarded to the Swiss judicial system: the first was considered time-barred and the second was filed in October last year.
At the same time, the former player will initiate civil proceedings against the highest football entity “to obtain compensation for all damages” related to “the maneuvers used to prevent him from being elected FIFA president in 2015”.
“I will not let [impunes] the people who harmed me”, promised Platini in an interview with French radio RMC in March, recalling the fraud case that led to his resignation as UEFA president in 2016, for which he was definitively acquitted in Switzerland in August 2025.
Michel Platini considers that Gianni Infantino, who was his right-hand man at UEFA, as well as Marco Villiger, former legal director of FIFA, and Domenico Scala, former president of the audit committee, “worked to remove him from the race for the presidency” of the entity through “totally unfounded accusations”.
The revelation, in the second half of 2015, of a payment of two million Swiss francs made to the Frenchman by FIFA four years earlier it triggered a series of disciplinary and, later, criminal proceedings, just when Michel Platini seemed to be the favorite to assume the presidency of FIFA.
The removal of the former captain of the French team paved the way for the unexpected election, in February 2016, of his General Secretary at UEFA, Gianni Infantino.
The Italian-Swiss was re-elected without opposition in 2019 and 2023 and will seek a new term in March next year.
