Platini case: Emmanuel Macron involved, according to Mediapart

Text by: Farid Achache Follow

According to the news site, the French president would have helped Michel Platini in the corruption case concerning the conditions for the award of the 2022 World Cup in Qatar.

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Emmanuel Macron is he implicated in the corruption scandal concerning the award of the 2022 World Cup in Qatar? This is what Mediapart claims , which had access to wiretaps and judicial summary reports. According to the news site, Michel Platini said in 2019 on the phone that the French president was committed to "  help  " judicially. A senior magistrate posted to the Court of Cassation is also allegedly involved.

A discreet meeting

Michel Platini met Emmanuel Macron on March 8, 2018 at the Elysée Palace, during an appointment not appearing in the official agenda of the president. This confidential meeting was organized by journalist Jacques Vendroux, then head of the sports department at Radio France. "  One day I said to Michel :" It would be nice if you met Macron, he loves football. " I organized the meeting. We talked about football, Juventus, Saint-Etienne, the French team, the title of 84, the title of 98  ", he tells Mediapart.

According to Jacques Vendroux, Michel Platini's court cases were not at the heart of the discussion. "  The president never said, " I'll take care of you. " Never, never, never ...  He never said, "I'll help you." He said, I don't know, maybe he said a sentence like "I'm going to see", but Michel didn't ask for anything. And the president has promised nothing.  "

The wiretaps to which Mediapart had access would indicate another version. In one of them, Michel Platini exchanged, on May 24, 2019, with his friend Jean-Pierre Chanal, deputy director general of the services of the City of Marseille. "  Me, I sent something to the Élysée Palace saying that the president said he would help me [...]  It would be nice if he showed it now, huh,  " Michel Platini said to his interlocutor .

A senior magistrate of the Court of Cassation in question

Jean-Pierre Chanal is also said to have put Michel Platini in contact with Michel Debacq, high magistrate of the Court of Cassation. Michel Dabacq tells Mediapart that he met Michel Platini three times "  on a friendly basis  " and considers that the subject is "  his private life  ".

According to the information site - which still cites wiretapping - Michel Dabacq would have helped the former football player to open an investigation into those who reported him to the Swiss justice system.

On June 18, 2019, Michel Platini had been placed in police custody, in Nanterre, in the premises of the Central Office for the fight against corruption and financial and fiscal offenses (OCLCIFF). He had been interviewed as part of the preliminary investigation opened by the National Financial Prosecutor's Office (PNF) for "  private bribery  ", "  criminal association  ", "  influence peddling and concealing influence peddling  " around the attribution of the 2022 World Cup in Qatar. The PNF is particularly interested in a lunch at the Elysée Palace on November 23, 2010. That day, Michel Platini and the emir of Qatar were gathered around Nicolas Sarkozy, president at the time.

Court proceedings in Switzerland

Furthermore, Michel Platini is not done with justice in Switzerland. The investigation opened in 2015 against Sepp Blatter for a payment without a written record of 2 million Swiss francs to Michel Platini was extended to the latter for suspicions of "  complicity in mismanagement and embezzlement  ". In a letter dated June 5 and signed by the prosecutor Thomas Hildbrand, the federal prosecution decided to extend its investigation to Michel Platini, on suspicion of "  complicity in mismanagement, embezzlement and forgery  ". The former UEFA boss now has the status of "  accused  ".

During his media tour last October, on the occasion of the release of his book Entre nous  and the end of his suspension from Fifa, Michel Platini had the opportunity to hear a message of support from Emmanuel Macron on RTL. “  I know that the past few years have been hard, that the wounds have sometimes been deep, that the feeling of injustice is also there. And basically, I had a message, this message of admirer, this message of thanks, and this message which consists in telling you [that]  you still have lots of things to bring to French football and to young French people . So well done, thank you and come back, it would make me happy,  "said the President of the Republic.

“  The President of the Republic, who has an interest in football, received the football player, the icon Michel Platini, but in no case the justiciable Michel Platini. The president knows perfectly well that he cannot evoke the individual file of a litigant  ”, indicates for his part the Elysée to Mediapart.

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