Michel Platini calls for new vote on Qatar World Cup

Michel Platini has said Fifa must hold another vote for the 2022 World Cup if corruption allegations against Qatar’s winning bid are proven.

The Uefa president told L’Equipe that he does not regret his own vote for Qatar and still thinks the Gulf nation “was the right choice for Fifa and for world football”.

“But if instances of corruption are proved, there will need to be a new vote and sanctions,” Platini said.

The Fifa prosecutor Michael Garcia plans by next week to wrap up his investigation of the 2010 votes for Qatar and 2018 World Cup host Russia.

Platini claimed that “somebody, something” was plotting to discredit his possible candidacy for the Fifa presidency.

Media reports this week cast doubts on Platini’s links to the disgraced Mohamed bin Hammam alleging a secret meeting before the 2010 vote with the Qatari official, suspected of vote-buying and other irregularities whom Fifa subsequently expelled in 2012.

Platini told L’Equipe it was simply breakfast with a work colleague and fellow member of the Fifa board.

“I read ‘Platini corrupt?’ in all the newspapers, on news agency wires, on blogs. Honestly, it hurts,” Platini said. “I saw this colleague 10,000 times in 15 years. Why would I have had a secret meeting with him? I now realise that in the background there is somebody, something, people organising all this. I can feel it.

“For a year now, everything is being done to discredit me, regardless of what I do. It is easy to feed people who spend their time denigrating you on social networks. There are firms that specialise in this. It’s not hard, you simply have to pay.”

Platini stopped short of accusing anyone at Fifa of involvement. “I have no proof,” he said. “I don’t know who is behind all this. But I think lots of interests are at stake, for those at Fifa, for those who want to be there” and “without doubt also for those who want us to overturn the attribution of the 2022 World Cup to Qatar”.

Platini said that none of this would influence his decision on whether to challenge Sepp Blatter for the Fifa presidency. Platini said he will announce in August, after the World Cup in Brazil, whether he will run in the May 2015 election.

Blatter is looking to next week’s Fifa congress to support his own ambitions for another four-year term.