Wednesday, June 10, 2026 - Former UEFA president Michel Platini has launched civil and legal proceedings against Fifa and current president Gianni Infantino over corruption allegations from 2015, which he says derailed his bid to lead the governing body.
The criminal complaint, filed in the French courts, accuses
Infantino and two former Fifa officials – legal director Marco Villiger and
audit committee chair Domenico Scala – of malicious prosecution.
In a separate civil lawsuit, Platini, 70, is seeking
financial compensation from Fifa over alleged efforts to block his election as
Fifa president.
Former France captain Platini was Uefa president from 2008
to 2015 and had been the favourite to succeed Sepp Blatter as Fifa president in
2016.
However, in 2015 the pair became embroiled in allegations of
fraud and corruption over a payment of 2m Swiss francs (£1.6m) made to Platini
in 2011, which, it had been claimed, was authorised by Blatter.
It led Blatter to resign from his role and ended
Platini's hopes of becoming head of Fifa, with the Frenchman also banned for
eight years by Fifa's ethics committee – a sanction later reduced to four years
by the Court of Arbitration for Sport.
Both Platini and Blatter subsequently faced criminal charges
but were cleared of corruption in a Swiss federal criminal appeals court in
March 2025.
Infantino, general secretary of Uefa under Platini, replaced
Blatter as Fifa president.
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