Were Michel Platini and Nicolas Sarkozy responsible for the downfall of Blatter’s empire?

Sepp Blatter and Michel Platini come from completely opposite backgrounds. Blatter rose through the ranks as an effective and pragmatic administrator, knowing how to play politics with the best. A disciple of Joao Havelange, Blatter has spent his time as FIFA President continuing his Brazilian predecessor’s policy of strengthening the power of developing countries while doing just enough to keep established nations on board. He may be a European, but Blatter never did have much time for UEFA, even before Platini became its president.

Platini’s background is well known, arguably France’s greatest ever player, he moved on to an unsuccessful spell as the national team coach before cutting his teeth as an administrator by heading the Organising Committee of the 1998 World Cup in France. Just eight years later, he defeated the experienced Lennart Johannsson to become UEFA President.

A preliminary agreement for Russia to host the World Cup in 2018 before returning the competition to the United States in 2022 was a hallmark of Blatter’s pragmatic approach. FIFA’s acceptance of the lucrative Russian bid would be followed up by the safe bet of the United States and most importantly it would tick every political box.

Blatter would have been well aware that there are few things that could annoy the Americans more than seeing their perennial thorn in the side, Vladimir Putin, parading the biggest tournament on Earth around Russia. However the United States would be more than placated by receiving the 2022 tournament and ‘bad losers’ like England would most certainly have made less of a song and dance about the whole thing if they feared upsetting the Americans. Some insight into Blatter’s thinking was offered yesterday when he said:

“And so we will have the World Cup in the two biggest political powers.”

From Blatter’s perspective, one can only imagine his fury when a naïve and juvenile Platini blew months, maybe even years, of careful planning out of the water by suggesting UEFA members of FIFA’s Executive Committee vote for Qatar on the advice of French President Nicolas Sarkozy.

‘Qatar, of all bidders?!’ Blatter must have thought. ‘Not even a sensible bid that could be justified objectively as the best place to host a World Cup, simply the one that threw most money at it. How the hell are we supposed to get away with this?!’

For Platini the move to award the 2022 World Cup to Qatar was either extremely stupid or extremely clever. It came at a time when relations between UEFA and the Gulf State were at an all-time high. The Qatari royal family had just made the landmark purchase of PSG, and agreed to become Barcelona’s first ever commercial sponsor (to the dismay of traditionalists everywhere). Such was their wealth and influence on European football that they were able to summon such legends as Zinedine Zidane and Pep Guardiola to the their World Cup bid. One can imagine a man with the stature of President Sarkozy must have been very persuasive, and with him on side surely the wrath of the Americans could be kept at bay?

This calculation may have been correct if Qatar 2022 wasn’t joined in unholy matrimony with Russia 2018. Even if the bid process was whiter than white, making two choices so controversial was always going to arouse suspicion. But maybe Platini knew perfectly well that this was the case and went ahead with it in order to wound Blatter.

Maybe he calculated that people wouldn’t give too much thought to who he voted for and that it was FIFA, rather than UEFA that would come under scrutiny. Maybe he knew that as FIFA President, it was Blatter that would be forced into the dock to defend the indefensible.

For a long time it looked like Platini would be right, until the issue of a £1.35 million payment from Blatter came up and resulted in him joining the FIFA President in being suspended from all football activities. Certainly the FA, and the vast majority of European associations who committed to vote for Platini as the next president, didn’t see fit to punish him for being the spearhead of the Qatar debacle.

From his interview with TASS we can see Blatter unable to hide his rage that the arrogant bigwigs at UEFA, as he always suspected, succeeded in undermining the empire which he took decades to build. Now a wounded animal, he will step up his fight for revenge and to prevent FIFA ever returning to the European control of the pre-Havelange days. To put it simply, Blatter will not leave without bringing Platini and UEFA down with him.