Just four days before the kickoff of the 2026 FIFA World Cup, a long-simmering power struggle at the top of global football has erupted into a new legal battle. Seventy-year-old Michel Platini, the legendary French footballer who led the organization of the 1998 World Cup on home soil, announced Monday he has launched legal action against current FIFA president Gianni Infantino in French judicial system, marking the latest turn in a feud stretching back almost a decade.
In an official statement shared with Agence France-Presse, Platini confirmed his legal team has submitted two separate court filings targeting the plot he claims was hatched to keep him from claiming the FIFA presidency he says was promised to him. The French legal system, the statement noted, is now charged with fully unravelling this conspiracy.
The roots of the conflict stretch back to 2015, when long-time FIFA president Sepp Blatter was forced out of office amid a sweeping corruption scandal. At the time, Platini served as the head of UEFA, European football’s governing body, and was widely seen as the overwhelming favorite to succeed Blatter. But just as his campaign got underway, the former France captain and national team coach was pulled into the expanding scandal, derailing his bid entirely. In his place, Infantino — Platini’s own deputy at UEFA — stepped in and won the FIFA presidency, setting off a years-long bitter feud between the two men.
Platini’s new legal action names three key figures as defendants: 56-year-old Infantino, and former FIFA officials Marco Villiger and Domenico Scala. He is also calling on French prosecutors to open investigations into former Swiss Attorney General Michael Lauber and other officials from his department. The first filing is a civil lawsuit, which seeks full financial compensation for all harms Platini has endured since the alleged conspiracy blocked his 2015 presidential run. The second is a criminal complaint that pushes for a formal investigation into charges of criminal conspiracy, false accusations, influence peddling, and aiding and abetting influence peddling, all aimed at removing Platini from the 2015 presidential race.
This is not the first time Platini has turned to the courts to seek redress. He previously filed two separate legal complaints in Switzerland, but neither case ever proceeded to a public trial. For their part, Swiss prosecutors spent years pursuing criminal action against Platini over a $2 million 2011 payment he received from FIFA, but three separate attempts to secure a conviction all ended in failure. Swiss authorities have also opened investigations into Infantino over his use of private jets and three undisclosed closed-door meetings he held with Lauber between 2016 and 2017.
In his statement Monday, Platini doubled down on his claim that he was the victim of a coordinated unjust plot. “The Parisian investigating judge, along with investigative agencies, police, and gendarmerie, are tasked with uncovering and exposing the internal manoeuvres within FIFA, with the possible complicity of Swiss magistrates, to block the path of the three-time Ballon d’Or winner to the helm of world soccer,” the statement read.