Former UEFA president, Michel Platini, has renewed his legal battle against FIFA president Gianni Infantino by filing a fresh criminal complaint in France over events linked to the 2015 financial scandal that derailed his path to football’s top job.
According to ESPN, Platini, who was acquitted for a second time last year by a Swiss appeals court, instructed lawyers in Paris to submit a criminal complaint against Infantino and five other Swiss football and judicial officials.
The former France captain accused the officials of orchestrating “a conspiracy of false accusation and influence peddling” aimed at blocking his expected emergence as FIFA president nearly a decade ago.
Platini’s legal team is also preparing a civil lawsuit against FIFA, seeking compensation over the damage caused by the case, a spokesperson for the football legend confirmed. Similar allegations had earlier been directed at Swiss authorities in 2022.
The latest legal action comes just days before Infantino is scheduled to officially open the FIFA World Cup across North America, where he has frequently appeared alongside U.S. President Donald Trump.
Infantino rose to the FIFA presidency in 2016 after serving for years as UEFA general secretary under Platini, who at the time was widely viewed as the favourite to succeed former FIFA president Sepp Blatter.
Blatter’s exit followed the fallout from corruption investigations involving several football officials, launched by U.S. authorities in 2015.
However, months later, Platini and Blatter became subjects of a separate Swiss investigation tied to a payment of 2 million Swiss francs ($2.5 million) made to the French football icon.
Despite the allegations, both men were cleared twice of fraud-related charges after trials in Switzerland in 2022 and again on appeal last year.
Among those named in Platini’s latest complaint are former Swiss attorney general Michael Lauber and FIFA’s then-legal director Marco Villiger.
