Platini talks UEFA, FIFA's image in exclusive interview with FOX Sports
Former French legend and current UEFA president, Michel Platini, admitted to FOX Sports' Rob Stone that the public perception of FIFA is "not good" in a forthright and wide-ranging interview that aired exclusively on FOX Sports 1 on Thursday.
Back in September, Michael J. Garcia, the former U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, filed a 350-page report about the potential of corruption in awarding of the next two World Cups. Russia is set to host the event in 2018 and Qatar is set to host in 2022. FIFA hired Garcia to investigate but says its own regulations prohibit the findings from being released to the public. The ex-France international disagreed with FIFA's decision.
"[The perception of FIFA] is not good because there is a lot of problems with corruption," Platini told Stone. "If the report of Mr. Garcia show that Qatar's bid was corrupt, we have to come back to the rotation, and have another rotation."
It is not a problem Platini plans to tackle himself, though. The 59-year-old expects to remain in his role as UEFA president with Euro 2016 planned for his native country in two years' time.
"It was a question of FIFA and UEFA, and I decided to stay in UEFA because there is more football in UEFA, there is the Euro in France, my country, there is the Euro 2020, which is a tough project. So it was my decision to decide this way, to stay in UEFA," Platini said.
As he continues to focus on the European game, Platini says he wants to find ways to increase the pool of teams capable of winning the UEFA Champions League. Platini calls the Champions League "incredible" and wants to see how the implementation of Financial Fair Play impacts the field in the future.
"We have to work to have twenty big clubs that can win the Champions League," Platini said. "It would be very good for the football."
In addition to those efforts, Platini is planning to address other concerns. He notes the important of adopting concussion protocols suggested by the UEFA medical committee and ridding the game of match fixing and third-party ownership. He also underscores the need to eradicate racism within the game after several high-profile incidents over the past few years.
"We have done a lot and we continue to do. ... There is a lot of racists in some countries, and we try to punish the people, we don't try to punish the club, we don't try to punish the players," Platini said. "We try to punish these stupid fans who come to the stadium to insult people who are not the same color as themselves. And that is not right, and we do our best to punish the people [involved]."
Information from The Associated Press was used in this report.
