Listening to 2017 revealed by Mediapart on Monday as part of the judicial investigation opened by the National Financial Prosecutor's Office (PNF) on the awarding in 2010 of the Worlds-2018 and 2022, at the time of the Platini presidency at UEFA , confuse the 66-year-old French leader.
The latter admitted in a conversation with his wife to having received a "painting" from a certain "Ouchmanov", who could be, according to Mediapart, the oligarch Alicher Ousmanov, currently targeted by sanctions from the European Union after the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Asked by AFP on this file, Michel Platini's entourage did not respond.
With the daily newspapers Le Monde and l'Equipe, Platini's entourage acknowledged on Monday that the leader had received a "lithograph" of Picasso from Mr. Ousmanov in 2016 for his 61st birthday, and not a painting.
On Tuesday, the former leader of the European Confederation counter-attacked on another file, by making public the filing of a complaint in Paris in November 2021 against Infantino for "active influence peddling" and against Marco Villiger, former director legal from Fifa, for "complicity in active influence peddling".
The Paris prosecutor's office registered this complaint on November 16, according to the receipt of which AFP obtained a copy, without it being known at this stage what action was taken.
The ex-N.10 of the Blues has been directly opposed for several years to Infantino and his entourage, whom he suspects of having ousted him from the race for the presidency of Fifa in 2015 by alerting the Swiss prosecution to a suspicious payment of 2 million Swiss francs (1.8 million euros), made by Fifa on the orders of its president Sepp Blatter to the attention of the French in 2011, without written justification.
In this case, Michel Platini and Sepp Blatter were indicted in Switzerland in November 2021 for several offenses including fraud and are heading for trial.
The two men insist that it is a remainder of salary for work as an adviser dating back to the period 1999-2002.
Former UEFA president Michel Platini in front of the Swiss prosecutor's office Thomas Hildbrand, August 31, 2020 in Bern Fabrice COFFRINI AFP / Archives
Elected in 2016 at the helm of Fifa, Infantino has been targeted since July 2020 by criminal proceedings in Switzerland for "incitement to abuse of authority", "violation of official secrecy" and "obstructing the 'penal action'.
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