Emerging from his FIFA-enforced exile, Platini used the platform in Athens to highlight his achievements since assuming the UEFA presidency in 2007 and issue advice to the next head of European soccer.
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Attica: UEFA on Wednesday elects a new president after the banning of Michel Platini with Slovenian football leader Aleksander Ceferin the favourite to take on the task of easing tensions with Europe’s leading clubs.
Ceferin becomes just the seventh president in the 62-year history of UEFA and will now take on the remainder of Platini’s term, which is due to end in 2019.
“You are going to continue this wonderful mission without me”, Platini said.
“I will have to sit down with all 55 national associations to see what is the agreement and what we can do in the future about it”, he added. He has said that “the most important task we face is to create a balance between the various stakeholders and levels of football in Europe”.
Earlier, Platini who was granted special permission by Federation Internationale de Football Association to address the Congress insisted that he had done nothing wrong.
Platini said he had fought as UEFA leader to preserve football from ‘all the excesses that its planetary success has engendered’.
One of the finest players of his generation who went on to become a powerful sporting official, Platini was suspended over his dealings with fallen world football chief Sepp Blatter during the scandal which shook the sport’s global governing body past year.
Platini told the congress: “Football is a game before a product, a sport before a market, a show before a market …” You can say that I’m young and inexperienced but I honestly think it’s disrespectful to all the presidents of small and medium-sized federations who every year have to do more with less.
Ceferin said his top priority was to address Champions League reforms agreed by UEFA’s executive committee last month. The new incumbent must tackle a growing financial split in European football between a small handful of elite clubs and the vast majority who live in a completely different reality.
Ceferin is not a member of UEFA’s executive committee and was little known outside his own country until he announced his intention to run in June.
“Today, democracy has spoken”.
In his acceptance speech Ceferin said: “It’s a great honour but, at the same time, great responsibility”.
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In his final speech before the vote, Ceferin had seemingly aimed a thinly veiled dig at Van Praag’s “building bridges” manifesto promises by stating “building pitches is better”.
