INTERVIEW
After a particularly busy summer on the judicial front, Sepp Blatter spoke on Sunday at the microphone of Europe 1. The Swiss, who led FIFA between 1998 and 2015, began on July 30 a series of three hearings within the framework of the criminal proceedings opened against him in September 2015, for "suspicion of unfair management and breach of trust". He will be questioned again on Tuesday. At the heart of this gigantic corruption scandal: the alleged unfair payment of two million Swiss francs made in 2011 to Michel Platini, then president of UEFA. Europe 1 summarizes the main statements of the former boss of world football.
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On the payment made to Michel Platini
"It's a backlog payment," Sepp Blatter once again claimed. Swiss justice suspects an "unfair payment of 2 million francs in favor of Michel Platini, president of the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA), to the detriment of FIFA, allegedly for work carried out between January 1999 and June 2002 ". The payment was made in February 2011 and is said to have been intended to tip the scales over the award of the 2022 World Cup.
On his links with Michel Platini
"It's been a while since I've had any connection with Michel Platini at all. I don't know exactly why. I had him on the phone a short time ago, but he just said he was doing it. confidence in Swiss justice, "said the former leader. "If I had him in front of me today, I would take him in my arms, despite the restrictions due to the coronavirus. I would say to him: 'well done Michel, now we are in court and we are together. not that in 2007, we were even more together, when I gave you a small step for the presidency of UEFA '".
Sepp Blatter also said the two would meet in court on Monday. But since 2015, their relationship has been severed. Michel Platini has long considered that Sepp Blatter was at the origin of the "cabal" against him. "I did not understand", lamented the Swiss.
On an "anti-Platini plot"
For Sepp Blatter, "Fifagate" is a conspiracy. “The number 1 target of the plot was Michel Platini, not me,” he says. "The one who could be dangerous for the current president, who was at UEFA (Gianni Infantino), was not me, because I had made my mandate available." "We had to stop the one who had a real chance of becoming" the next UEFA president, continues Sepp Blatter.
Gianni Infantino would he then plotted for personal gain to become president of FIFA? "I can not assure that, because there is no evidence. But when we put all the pawns together…. There was a leak, a denunciation," insisted the former leader.
>> READ ALSO - Fifagate: "The number 1 target of the plot was Michel Platini", says Sepp Blatter
On a possible conviction
"I'm not afraid of anything," hammered the former leader. "I don't see why I would go to jail. For the moment, I'm thinking about enjoying life and taking care of football a bit more."
On FIFA's management of the health crisis
At the microphone of Europe 1, Sepp Blatter also long regretted the lack of action of FIFA during the crisis caused by the Covid-19, which resulted in the suspension of many competitions and matches played behind closed doors. "I get chills when I think of what we could have done. We could have sent a message and we didn't. Money was made available, but that's not it. We needed human relations. Football could have done something ". If many players have taken initiatives, Sepp Blatter believes that football institutions have not been up to the task. "It's all well and good to have minutes of silence, but we lost a great opportunity to show that football can play a social role."
On the attribution of the 2022 World Cup to Qatar
"I did not want to go to Qatar. There was a consensus in the FIFA executive committee that in 2018, we would go to Russia and then to the United States in 2022. But it fell through. . Now, if we have to go to Qatar, we will go to Qatar, ”he said. The World Cup must indeed take place in the Gulf country in November and December 2022.
On the Final 8 of the Champions League and PSG
Asked about the result of the Champions League final, won by Bayern Munich against PSG (2-0), Sepp Blatter estimated that the Parisian club tended to rely "on its two great stars" (Mbappé and Neymar). "But this time, his two big stars ... It was not necessarily what we expected, especially from Neymar", he analyzed. "Just before half-time, Mbappé on his right foot ... This ball at ten meters, we put it in the net! Me, I would have put it in the net!", Also advanced the man of 84 years.
"Of course PSG can go further" in the years to come, he believes, however. "The club has the economic means and has a high quality of players but it is not necessary to access its game on only two players".
On the VAR
"VAR does not solve refereeing problems. […] Originally, we wanted, like in volleyball or tennis for example, that the coaches could, twice per half-time, view the video. I think that it would have been a possible solution ", explained the former leader about video arbitration, always very controversial and to which Michel Platini was, him, fiercely opposed. "You cannot install a revolutionary system at a World Cup without having first done some serious experience," said Sepp Blatter of the 2018 World Cup.
On his dream of a Nobel Peace Prize
Sepp Blatter also confided on Sunday evening that he dreamed of the Nobel Peace Prize, for himself or for FIFA. "It would have made me very happy," he said. He was responsible for the award of the 2010 World Cup to South Africa, the first football World Cup organized on the African continent, and claims to have wished to organize the 2018 and 2022 World Cups successively, in Russia then the United States, to bring the two great powers closer together.