Why Platini is the right guy for FIFA but the wrong guy for football.

[Kraut and Tea]

Under normal circumstances I would have posted this in the FIFA scandal thread in the politics section but am banned from there. As such and due to recent events I am going to open this new thread here and share my opinion and hope for your replies.


What gave me the incentive to post this thread was this article:

http://www.spiegel.de/sport/fussball...a-1048296.html

In it is revealed that Platini has started bullying Blatter after his reelection and resignation. Threatening him with arrest and jail and also threatening Blatters brother. Now I am by no ways a friend of Blatter, if anything I am one of his biggest critics. I absolutly despise him and see the system that he built together with the former FIFA president Havelange as a cancerous meliglant tumor that is rotting away on our beloved game. BUT - the bullying, threatening and backroom deals that Platini is currently engaging in is exactly the kind of behavior that created the mess that FIFA currently is and is also the kind of behavior that is required to have success and make a career within an organisation like FIFA. Platini is not only part of the corrupted FIFA machinery, he has also adopted it`s means and ways as his own. I am going to list a few more things down below that annoy me, and should in my opinion also annoy you about Platini.

The Last Election.

The entire football community had had nought of Sepp Blatter when he announced that he would be running again in 2014. We all knew that without a viable counter candidate it would be certain that Blatter would get reelected through all the small silly insignifant nations like Vanatu, Mauritius, Bahamas and co. If there were to be even a little chance for someone else to be elecetd it would have been for Platini. He should have ran for president and he could have been the person to beat Blatter. But having adopted the FIFA system in which one only runs if one has a 100% chance of winning Platini didnt run. But instead pushed the unconvincing Jordanian prince Ali into the race in his name. That cowardess and obvious adoption of the Blatter system has taken away every shred of credibility that Platini may have ever had.

The Election before.

Maybe some of you still remember that nonsence. The FIFA election in 2010 where there was only one candidate,naimly Blatter. Platini rallied the support for Blatter all throughout Europe whereever he could. He denounced all criticism of Platter or that farce that doesnt even deserve to be called an election. For journalists and other observers it was soon clear that Platini was promissed succession by Blatter. And Platini was dumb enought to not realise that Blatter had made the same promiss to Hayatou 8 years before only to make Hayatou his puppet in Africa.

He takes to much care of his kids.

Yeah sure, it is important to take care for your children and I am not going to critizise a father who takes responsible care for his children. Platini however seems to take a little to much care for his kids in some rather suspicious ways. For one there is the Europa League anthem affair. The Anthem for the Europa league should have idealy been decided via a competition in which composers present their entries. Or at the very least the proposals for the anthem should have been voted on by an UEFA congress. But no.. Platini, for some reason, directly chose a theme composed by his own son to be the Europa League anthem.
Secondly it is very suspicious that his son got a well payed top job in Qatar, just shortly after Platini started to publicly suport Qatar 2022.

Qatar 2022.

Where to start??

• Well, for one I already mentioned how his son got a top job in Qatar under suspicious circumstances after Platini started supporting Qatar 2022.
• There is the fact that Platini supports Qatar 2022 despite all the scandals, which he simply shrugs off as non-issues.
• There is the fact that Platini openly supports a winter world cup as UEFA president despite the fact that litteraly evey UEFA member opposes the winter world cup.
• There is the fact that just a few weeks before the 2011 world cup vote Platini, the French preident and the Emir of Qatar met for a secret dinner in Paris after Frence signed multi billion dollar agreements with Qatar over arms sales, energy sales, football ownership rights and french football tv rights. With one of the attendands revealing that Sarkozy told Platini to vote for Qatar.
• There is the expensive Picasso painting that Platini was "gifted" by a Qatari deligation before the vote.
• There is his friendship with the dubious Kuwaiti sheik Sabah.
• There are his frequent promotional trips to Qatar.

And I am pritty sure that if you looked, you would find some more.

His handling of UEFA.

Where to start....

Have you ever heard the name Jean Marie Weber? Or Issa Hayatou? Or Sheik Salman? Or Sheik Ahmad? Or Nicolas Leoz?

• Jean Marie Weber has to be the worlds most disgraced sports official. He is the Lance Amstrong of sports executives but unlike Lance Armstong, Weber for some reason still works as a sports executive. During the late 1980s and 1990s he ran the sports marketing company ISL which collapsed in the early 2000s. It was revealed that the entire company was nothing more than a scam operation that was set up by Jean Marie Weber together with a couple of corrupted FIFA officials to sell the TV and marketing rights for World Cup games, not for profits - but for bribes for FIFA officials. The system worked by disguising bribes as clean buisness deals and profits, whilest the company made no actual money since all the money going through were bribes and no legitemate profits. Weber was so good at his jobs that he allegedly also handled bribes in conection to the Olympic comitee. And it is worth mentioning that all the while he was a friend and even officialy hired by Havelange and Blatter. He built up a ton of conections and probably knows every corrupt sports official in the world and might have half of them as a contact on his phone. He is nicknamed "bagman" because he used to run arround Switzerland and sports congresses and hand out suitcases "bags" full of money in bribes. It has been proven by Swiss courts that during the 1990s he handled hundred of millions ( yes several 100 000 000) in bribes. But due to the incredible fact that corporate corruption wasnt illigal in Switzerland until the mid 2000s he never went to jail or could have been presured into revealing for whom he handled which bribes and to whom they went. During the 2009 Olympic congress in Copenhagen/Denmark journalists noticed that Jean Marie Weber was there and questioned the IOC president over it. It turnes out that Jean Marie Weber was made part of the Rio Je jenairo Olympic bid by his old friend Joa Havelange. Ever since it has been rather obvious to most obsevers that Havelange probably payed Weber to bribe IOC members. General rule: If Jean marie Weber is present at a sports congress - there is corruption going on.
• Issa Hayatou is the long serving Cameroonian boss of the African football Confederation CAF. Good luck getting any independent pieces of journalism on corruption out of the parts of Africa that have kept this 79 year old man in power for decades. He was cought handing out bribes in the early 2000s, but despite that he remained CAF president, FIFA vice president and was only banned from the IOC. With his powerbase being in Africa - and there mainly being dictatorships, it is most likely that he will only leave power when he dies or gets alzheimers. What we can say with absolute certainty is that CAF is precticly run like FIFA under Havelange and Blatter by small countries keeping the president in power for some weird reason. All I can say in conection to what might be the reason for Hayatous being in power - is that the before mentioned Jean Marie Weber is hired as an "advisor" by Hayatou and flies arround the various countries of Africa with big suitcases before attending the African football congress every 4 years.
• Sheik Ahmad and Sheik Salman have total control of Asian Olympic sports and football. I wish it was a joke but it isnt. The main man in charge here is Sheik Ahmad from Kuwait. Sheik Ahmad hired Jean Marie Weber as his "advisor", Jean Marie Weber then traveld throughout the various countries of Asia with big suitcases and Sheik Sabah was then selected as boss of the Asian IOC and on the powerfull IOC comitee. Asian football was for the most time governed by the Malayans, Chinese, Singaporeans, Japanese, Iranians and Koreans in a rather clean and almoust sterotypical way of far east Asian efficiancy, order and structure. So it is safe to say that for the longest of times those who were the most important in Asian football also ran it. Sheik Ahmad however didnt like that... despite the Arab gulf states not playing a big role in Asian football Sheik Ahmad and the Emir of Qatar had sheik Bin Hamman from Qatar run for the AFC presidency and hired Jean Marie Weber as an "advisor". Jean Marie Weber then traveld all throughout the various big nations of Asia with very big suitcases, and for some "totaly unreleated" reason sheik Bin Haman was elected AFC president. There was one big problem though, sheik Bin Haman was too corrupt and too greedy and his corruption was therefor soon revealed as he blatently tried to bribe everyone as he ran for FIFA president and he had to resign. Chinese football executive Zhang Jilong then took over the AFC presidency in 2011 and the gulf state plan was almoust ruined. But Sheik Ahmad got Sheik Slman to run for AFC president in 2013 and hired Jean Marie Weber as an "Advisor", Jean Marie Weber then traveld throughout the various Asian nations with big suitcases (total unreleated) and sheik Salman was elected AFC president at the next AFC congress. His first action in office was to move AFC headquaters to Bahrain - and good luck getting any independent report on football corruption out of there. In recent years They have tried to get control over Asian Cricket and Asian Rugby Union... but have only had limited success due to Austrialian questions. The result have been various reported rants in Qatari and Bahraini hotels and congress halls about kicking Australia out of Asian sports.
• All that really needs to be said about Nicolas Leoz is that he was finaly arrested by the FBI a few months ago in Switzerland together with several other corrupt officials on charges of corruption and racketeering. He used to be the boss of CONMEBOL and I think it is funny and should therefor also be mentioned that he requested a "knighthood" as bribe from the 2018 England world cup bid team.

So why am I mentioning all these despicable peoples with their despicable background stories from far away land that are totaly not in Europe to you?

Well take a look at past UEFA congresses under Michele Platini as UEFA president. All of these people are there and have been invited by Platini to be present. In fact Platini regulary meets Sheik Ahmad in Switzerland at Sheik Ahmads mantion. UEFA deals are by now almoust only done in secret meetings at villas, closed parties and hotels in Switzerland and not anymore at the UEFA congress. Platini has turned UEFA into FIFA and that is his biggest fault that it seems many in Europe are trying to ignore.
Just look at the last UEFA congress where Platini ran totaly unopposed by anyone. It was a farce almoust as the 2010 Blatter election, with the difference that at the 2010 congress members at least critizised Blatter. At the last UEFA congress nobody critizised Platini. Platini ran for UEFA president on a ticket of opposing big European clubs being sold to non Europeans, opposing the changing of time scheduals for non European audiences, transperancy in the UEFA decision process, supporting small second division and below clubs and to be more supportive of the common European football fan. And he has done the opposite in every possible way.
There is massive non European ownerships, franchising clubs out of their home is creeping into European football, clubs are punished for the misdeeds of their fans and on: Does anyone here remember La Liga in the early 2000s? Those glorious times with Luis Figo, Ronaldinho, Ronaldo, Zidane, a very young Iker Casillas, a young Puyol and many others? The games used to kick off at 9 0r 10 pm so as many as possible of the Spanish audience could watch the games because of the hot afternoons and forenoon and traditionaly always have. Today games kick off at 11.am because the Qatari channel beIN sports bought the La Liga rights and forced a reshedual of the league for it`s mainly gulf state audience.
The French league also had to totaly reschedual it`s time table because beIn sports demanded it after a takeover.
Platini reneged on all of his promisses and he either brought a system of French corruption into UEFA or adopted the FIFA system for FIFA. You can say alot about his predecessor Lennard Johannson, but at least he wasnt corrupt or a liar.

In Conclusion.

Platini is the wrong man to fix FIFA and would merely continue the system Blatter and the corrupted world cup hosting practices. But it doesnt matter, since the fate of FIFA no longer depends on it`s associated cronies but on the FBI and the US Department of Justice. Europe should however use the parting of Platini as a chance to fix UEFA before it goes full FIFA.

[Basil II the B.S]

edit: not sure why it double posted

[Basil II the B.S]

In short, it's apparently impossible to find a candidate that isn't completely rotten.

Platini is going to ruin his legacy as a player.

So far he's playing the smart opportunist and jumps ship as soon as he sees trouble. It's not going to last.

[ccllnply]

To be honest, I've never seen much difference between Platini and Blatter. Platini is just less outspoken (or maybe just less of an idiot with the media) and has less power, which would obviously change if he was FIFA president. The guy is just as corrupt and vindictive, he's just better at putting down and silencing dissent.