Platini files criminal complaint against Infantino days before World Cup begins

Michel Platini has filed a criminal complaint against FIFA president Gianni Infantino in the French courts, alleging that Infantino worked to engineer his exclusion from the 2016 FIFA presidential election. The complaint, confirmed by Platini’s lawyer Olivier Baratelli, names Infantino as the individual “first and foremost” responsible for that effort.

The filing lands at a particularly sensitive moment for FIFA, arriving just days before the start of the World Cup.

Platini, widely regarded as one of the most gifted footballers of the 1970s and 1980s and later president of UEFA, had been the frontrunner to succeed Sepp Blatter as FIFA chief in 2016. His candidacy collapsed after FIFA’s ethics committee launched a probe into a two million Swiss franc (£1.9m) payment he had received from Blatter in 2011. Platini has consistently maintained the sum was back pay for advisory work carried out between 1998 and 2002.

FIFA’s ethics committee banned Platini for eight years in 2015, a sanction later reduced to four years by the Court of Arbitration for Sport. Both Platini and Blatter subsequently faced criminal proceedings in Switzerland over the payment, but were acquitted by the Swiss federal criminal court in 2022 and again by the appeals court in 2025.

Having exhausted the Swiss legal process, Platini has now turned to the French courts, pursuing both criminal and civil claims. The complaint alleges that Infantino and others conspired to remove him from contention for the FIFA presidency.

FIFA has been contacted for comment.