Former UEFA president Michel Platini has filed civil and legal actions against FIFA and current president Gianni Infantino over corruption allegations from 2015, which he claims wrecked his bid to run the governing body.
The criminal lawsuit, filed in French courts, accuses Infantino and two former FIFA executives, legal director Marco Villiger and audit committee head Domenico Scala, of malicious prosecution.
In a separate civil complaint, Platini, 70, seeks financial compensation from FIFA for claimed attempts to prevent his election as FIFA president.
Former France captain Platini served as UEFA president from 2008 to 2015 and was widely expected to succeed Sepp Blatter as FIFA president in 2016.
However, in 2015, the pair became engaged in charges of fraud and corruption involving a payment of 2 million Swiss francs (£1.6 million) paid to Platini in 2011, which was claimed to have been authorized by Blatter.
It prompted Blatter to quit and terminated Platini’s chances of becoming FIFA’s president, with the Frenchman being banned for eight years by FIFA’s ethics committee—a sentence later reduced to four years by the Court of Arbitration for Sport.
Both Platini and Blatter were later charged for corruption but were dismissed by a Swiss federal criminal appeals court in March 2025.
Infantino, the general secretary of UEFA under Platini, succeeded Blatter as Fifa president.
