Platini Plays It Safe On Long Road To Zurich
Updated: 2:53pm UK, Thursday 28 August 2014
Michel Platini's decision to duck a contest with Sepp Blatter will disappoint those desperate to see a credible challenge to the Fifa president in next year's election.
Platini still counts himself among their number, but in a meeting with the heads of Europe's 54 national federations in Monaco he made it clear he is not willing to gamble his reputation or his political future in a race with Blatter.
Fifa has been mired in scandal throughout Blatter's 16-year tenure as president, latterly with a series of corruption allegations around the awarding of the 2022 World Cup to Qatar.
As Fifa's reputation has become more toxic, frustration in Europe has grown, particularly as Blatter promised in 2011 that this would be his last term.
Anger bubbled over before the World Cup in Brazil, when Platini and a number of European football leaders, FA chairman Greg Dyke among them, told the Swiss his time was up.
Platini said he could no longer support Blatter, while Dutch FA president Michael van Praag spoke for many when he said Fifa could not be credible with Blatter at the helm.
With Europe anxious for change, the way was clear for Platini to stand as the most credible opponent.
But after a summer of reflection he has opted out.
Platini said he had not been able to convince himself to run, and will instead seek re-election for a third term as head of Uefa next year.
As incumbent leaders often do, he claimed to have unfinished business, and pledged himself to the cause of European football.
Some will suspect the Frenchman lacks the courage of his convictions.
He said on Thursday he hopes someone will oppose Blatter, just not him, even though he insisted he could beat the Swiss.
He will certainly have an easier life steering Uefa's steady ship. And whatever the motivation, Platini is also bowing to the electoral reality of a race he almost certainly cannot win.
Uefa may control 25% of the votes in Fifa but most of the rest are already pledged to Blatter.
In Brazil the Fifa president received support from all five of the other continental federations before he visited Uefa.
With the odds against him perhaps Platini cannot be blamed for keeping his powder dry for a run at Fifa in 2019, when surely even the indefatigable Blatter, 78, will have had enough.
With Platini out of the running the search for an alternative is likely to be brief and futile.
Van Praag is considering a possible run, but without Platini's profile it would be a largely symbolic gesture.
Former Blatter advisor Jerome Champagne has said he will run, but concedes he has no chance of beating Blatter, and may not even get a nomination.
That leaves the prospect of Blatter standing unopposed for a second successive time. It is a spectacle that is unlikely to do much to restore Fifa's reputation.
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