©Getty Michel Platini in May at Fifa’s congressEurope’s top football official has announced he will run for the presidency of Fifa, saying he wants to restore the “dignity” of the game’s embattled world governing body.
Michel Platini, president of Uefa, European football’s governing body, is likely to become the frontrunner to succeed Sepp Blatter, Fifa’s 79-year old president, who has seen the organisation plunged into a global corruption scandal.
However Mr Platini will almost certainly be challengedby other candidates and may fail to win support in regions such as Africa amid fears rich European clubs already dominate the global sport.
World football was rocked in May when the US alleged Fifa executives had taken bribes of more than $150m in a culture of “rampant, systemic and deep-rooted” corruption. Earlier this month, an official was extradited to the US from Switzerland, the first of seven arrested at a Swiss hotel and held in connection with the FBI inquiries.
Since then Mr Blatter has announced plans for sweeping reforms of Fifa’s governance — and confirmed he will stand down on February 26, after working for more than 40 years at the football organisation in Zürich. But Fifa has yet to set out details of its proposes changes — many of which could face considerable resistance and which will be debated at the same congress on February 26.
Explaining his decision to run, Mr Platini, who has been Uefa president since 2007, said he had received support from across Fifa’s 209 member associations.
“There are times in life when you have to take your destiny into your own hands,” he said. “I am at one of those decisive moments.”
While Fifa had enjoyed stability under Mr Blatter, “recent events force the supreme governing body of world football to turn over a new leaf and rethink its governance”. His objective was “to give Fifa back the dignity and the position it deserves.”
Fifa has pledged to set up a reform “task force” with a neutral chairman, and that “concrete and comprehensive” plans to overhaul the organisation will be presented at a Fifa executive committee meeting on September 24.
Among the outline proposals put forward so far are “enhanced centralised integrity checks” for executive committee members, a limit on the number of terms Fifa presidents and executive committee members can serve, and disclosure of individual executives’ pay packages.
Fifa has also called for “higher standards of governance at all levels of football structures, including confederations and member associations.”
