Paris (AFP)
"Dear Platoche ... Come back, it would make me very happy": listening to a warm telephone message from Emmanuel Macron, Michel Platini was upset, stammering Thursday on the set of radio RTL: "I think I'll m ' faint ".
The radio made a surprise to the legend of French football who was his guest in the evening: a long message of praise from the President of the Republic, who asked him to return to get involved in the world of football.
The suspension of the former UEFA president ended on 7 October. He was suspended for four years in 2015 by the internal justice of FIFA for a controversial payment of 2 million Swiss francs, received from the President of Fifa, Sepp Blatter, also suspended.
"I know that the last years have been hard, that the wounds have sometimes been deep, that the feeling of injustice is there too," Emmanuel Macron told him during this message recorded at the end of October.
"But you still have a lot of things to contribute to French football and young French, and if you were ready, maybe not to put on the crampons, but to re-engage for football, sport, our country, that would make me pleasure". "So, congratulations, thank you and come back, it would be my pleasure," added the President of the Republic who "dreamed of entire generations including mine."
Listening to him, Michel Platini, very touched, had trouble finding his words. "I think I am going to faint ... I am very moved, I did not expect at all that the President of the Republic can say such beautiful things about me".
If Platini, 64, can now consider regaining a role in football and said he received many proposals, he has not yet given details of a possible base.
"I will come back to the extent that I can be useful, I have not decided anything, I will talk to him one-on-one," the player concluded.
© 2019 AFP