Michel Platini once regarded Gianni Infantino as an effective number two. He now says the FIFA president has proved incapable of being a good number one, accusing him of becoming an autocrat who courts money and power while disregarding football’s rules.
By Sports Reporter
In an explosive series of public broadsides culminating in a scathing broadcast interview on France’s Canal Football Club, French football icon and former UEFA President Michel Platini has launched an unfiltered crusade against FIFA President Gianni Infantino.
Platini, who spent years working alongside Infantino when the Swiss administrator served as his UEFA Secretary-General, offered an unvarnished indictment of his former lieutenant’s character, governance style, and commercialisation of the game.
The Assessment: “Fond of Money and Power”
Reflecting on their prior working relationship at UEFA, Platini pulled no punches regarding Infantino’s motivations and evolution as a sporting bureaucrat.
“He was, to some extent, a good number two, but he was answering to a superior. I always knew he was fond of money and power.”
Speaking in a complementary interview with The Guardian, the 1984 European Championship winner expanded on Infantino’s leadership flaws:
“He was a good number two, but is not a good number one. He worked very well at UEFA, but he has one problem: he likes the rich and powerful people, the ones with money. It’s his character. He was like that as a number two, but back then he was not the boss.”
For Platini, the problem did not end with Infantino’s rise from number two to number one; he believes the accumulation of power has fundamentally changed the way his former colleague runs football. “Unfortunately, Infantino has become more of an autocrat since the pandemic. There is less democracy than in Blatter’s time. You can say what you want about Blatter, but his main problem was that he wanted to continue at FIFA for life. He was a good person for football.”
A Breakdown of the Game’s Rules
Platini’s sharpest critiques focused on structural alterations to football’s core integrity and match management under Infantino’s mandate. Pointing directly to commercial distortions and unauthorised rule shifts during high-profile tournaments, Platini declared that Infantino had lost his mandate to govern.
“Economic affairs are one thing, but Infantino has failed because he is the guarantor of the rules of the game and he didn’t respect them.”
“The ad breaks are not in the rules, the 30-minute half-time break in the final is not in the rules, and the red card, that’s the worst. He’s the guarantor [of the rules], he doesn’t respect them, he must go.”
Platini broadened his criticism beyond Infantino, aiming at the wider culture of football administration and those who, in his view, have lost sight of what the game is really about.
“I think football is a beautiful celebration; it is something important. Football is the matches… This is politics. It is a microcosm of people who think they are the bosses of football. Whereas the bosses of football are Mbappé, Zidane, Maradona… They are bureaucrats who arrive somewhere, who have the glory and the money, and then they lose the plot. There should be players.”
“The administrators in football now are just doing their job. You find many who wouldn’t care whether it’s football or basketball. It is not always a case of loving football if you work at UEFA or FIFA.”
The Legal and Political Front Line
Platini’s public campaign coincides with active legal proceedings in France. The former French national captain has filed lawsuits naming Infantino alongside former FIFA officials, pursuing damages over what he characterises as a coordinated plot to derail his 2015 FIFA presidential bid.
“It won’t be sporting institutions that sort this out and bring him down. If UEFA wants to bring down Infantino, it will be through the courts.”
“But now that there are lots of investigations into him all over the world, there is some noise about how he knew about certain things – let’s see what happens next.”
With regional confederations applying renewed pressure ahead of upcoming FIFA leadership cycles, Platini’s unvarnished broadside marks an intense escalation in the battle for world football’s governance.