Platini files criminal complaint against FIFA president Infantino

FIFA president Gianni Infantino is the subject of a criminal complaint from his former boss at UEFA, Michel Platini, just days before the World Cup kicks off.

Former UEFA president Platini, one of the most gifted footballers of the 1970s and 1980s, had been favourite to succeed Sepp Blatter as FIFA chief in 2016 until the launch of an ethics probe into a payment he received from Blatter in 2011.

Platini was banned for eight years by FIFA’s ethics committee in 2015 – a sanction which was later reduced to four years by the Court of Arbitration for Sport. Platini and Blatter also faced criminal proceedings regarding the payment, but both were acquitted by the Swiss federal criminal court in 2022 and then by the appeals court in 2025.

Now Platini has launched criminal and civil proceedings in the French courts over the matter, with Infantino one of the individuals named.

The criminal complaint, as confirmed by his lawyer Olivier Baratelli, alleges that Infantino and others “worked to exclude (Platini) from the race for the presidency of FIFA”. The complaint alleges that Infantino was the one “first and foremost” seeking to achieve this.

Platini has always maintained that the two million Swiss francs ($2.5 million) payment from Blatter was back pay for work conducted as an advisor to Blatter between 1998 and 2002.