Michel Platini filed a complaint on Monday against FIFA boss Gianni Infantino for "false accusation" and "influence peddling," his retaliation in the case that shattered his rise to the top of world football in 2015, according to a statement sent to AFP.

This complaint, which also targets two former FIFA officials, is accompanied by a civil action and will therefore "lead to the appointment of an investigating judge," explains the former legend of the French national team.

He had filed two simple complaints in 2018 and 2021 in the same case, respectively for slanderous denunciation against X and for influence peddling against Gianni Infantino, both transmitted to the Swiss justice system: the first was considered time-barred and the second was closed without further action last October.

The three-time Ballon d'Or winner will also launch a civil liability procedure against the world football governing body, "to obtain compensation for all damages" related to "the maneuvers used to prevent him from being elected president of FIFA in 2015," he explains.

"I'm not going to let go of the people who have hurt me," he promised last March on RMC radio, referring to the fraud case that precipitated his downfall before concluding with a final acquittal in Switzerland in August 2025.

Michel Platini believes that Gianni Infantino, who was his number two at UEFA, but also former FIFA legal director Marco Villiger and former chairman of its audit committee Domenico Scala, "worked to exclude him from the race for the presidency" of the organization, through "completely unfounded accusations".

The revelation in the fall of 2015 of a payment of two million Swiss francs (1.8 million euros) made to the Frenchman by FIFA four years earlier led to a series of disciplinary and then criminal proceedings, at the very moment when Michel Platini seemed ideally placed to take the helm of FIFA.

The sidelining of the former captain of Les Bleus had paved the way for the unexpected election in February 2016 of his general secretary at UEFA, Gianni Infantino.

The Italian-Swiss was re-elected without opposition in 2019 and 2023, and will seek a new mandate next March.

AFP