News about Michel Platini

The appeal trial of Sepp Blatter and Michel Platini will take place in March of next year at the Basel-Landschaft district court in Liestal, Switzerland. Former FIFA president Sepp Blatter and French footballing legend Michel Platini were both cleared of corruption charges by a Swiss court in 2022. The decision followed a six-year investigation for fraud into a payment of £1.6m paid to former UEFA president by FIFA in 2011.

The Ballon d'Or award is commonly seen as the most prestigious prize that can be handed out in football.  However, there is an award which even tops that and has only been handed out to one player in the sport's history. The Super Ballon d'Or was introduced in 1989 by France Football, and to this day has still not been handed out again. 

MATT BARLOW: Where's all the French flair gone? With his team failing to score from open play, Les Bleus coach Didier Deschamps has embraced his role as national killjoy The prospect of France against Spain in the European Championship will conjure flashbacks to 1984, for anyone of a certain vintage. That was the summer of French footballing flair as created by Michel Platini, since mired by FIFA controversy but then a supreme and unblemished midfield artist at the peak of his powers. His flamboyant brilliance and record nine goals in that tournament, including two hat-tricks in the group stage, was complemented by the silky skills of Alain Giresse, Jean Tigana and Luis Fernandez.

THE fact that Hungary require an extraordinary turn of events to qualify for the knock-out round is not quite how their legions of followers anticipated Euro 2024 unfolding. Yet, none present in the MHPArena in Stuttgart tomorrow will ever blithely dismiss the achievement of simply competing at this level again. For fully three decades, a country credited with revolutionising the game in the 1950s with their prototype Total Football found itself in international exile, a perennial spectator whenever the great summer festivals began.

Spain kicked off their Euro 2024 campaign underway in style after thrashing Croatia 3-0 in Berlin.  Alvaro Morata opened the scoring just before the half hour mark when he slotted the ball home after a pass by Fabian Ruiz.  Ruiz turned goalscorer three minutes later with a strike from the edge of the box before Dani Carvajal made it three seconds before the break. 

Fans watching this summer's Copa America could soon see the latest card brandished in football. South American football's governing body CONMEBOL have passed a rule ahead of the tournament in the United States. The pink card will be part of a system which could see a team granted an additional substitute in matches.

Former FIFA president Sepp Blatter has shared more of his experience since being put in a induced coma following heart surgery, which left him with chest pains that made him miss the first day of his 2022 fraud trial. Blatter served as president of football's global governing body from 1998 to 2015, when he was barred from office by FIFA's ethics committee after criminal charges were opened against him by the Swiss Attorney General's Office. He was forced to stand down in 2015 and was banned by FIFA for eight years, but that was later reduced to six for authorizing a transfer of 2 million Swiss Francs (approx £1.8 million) to then-UEFA President Michel Platini allegedly in his own interests rather than FIFA's.

With the introduction of a blue card and 10-minute sin-bins, football is likely to see a major rule change. The International Football Association Board (IFAB) has announced that referees will have the ability to order players to the sin-bin for acts of opposition against officials and cynical fouls. A trial could be held in next season's FA Cup, with players informed that two blue-card offenses, or a mixture of yellow and blue, could result in a red card and dismissal. However, we have actually seen other coloured cards used in football in the past, long before the introduction of the latest blue one.

MATT HUGHES IN PARIS: At tomorrow's congress in Paris, the FA is expected to vote against Aleksander Ceferin's controversial measures, which would allow him to serve as president for 15 years. Ceferin's proposed reforms to UEFA Statutes had divided European football, according to Mail Sport's December, with former Manchester United chief executive David Gill slamming them at an Executive Committee in Hamburg. Ceferin was elected president of the United EuropeFA in place of the disgraced Michel Platini's tenure and introduced a three-term maximum for all executives, but has since submitted an amendment stating that periods of office that started before July 2017 do not count.

Ronaldo has selected who he thinks the eight greatest players of all time are. Ronaldo Nazario, 47, had a glittering career from 1993 to 2011, playing for Barcelona, Inter Milan, Real Madrid, and AC Milan, while still scoring 62 times in 98 games for Brazil. The former footballer of his generation is one of the most popular footballers of his time, and he has since attempted to play football for Real Valladolid in Spain and his boyhood Brazilian team Cruzeiro.

MATT HUGHES: Proposed rule reforms that will encourage him to serve in office until 2031 are among the documents sent to each national association ahead of next month's congress in Paris, but Ceferin has said that the amendments are missing from the European governing body's three-year limit. When Ceferin's plans to prolong his reign to 15 years were unveiled in Hamburg last month, members of the UEFA's executive committee were stunned, and secrecy remains to be his modus operandi.

Ceferin, according to Mail Sport, is seeking to change UEFA laws so that his first three years in office, after replacing Michel Platini in 2016, do not count toward his three-year term in office, which will allow him to serve as president until 2031. Former Manchester United chief executive David Gill is thought to have led the opposition in a tense discussion with Ceferin at last weekend's UEFA Executive Committee in Hamburg.

The hangovers had worn off, and Roberto Mancini's Giorgio Armani suit had returned from the dry cleaners, and Italy will have to decide how to protect their Euros crown in Germany after the choruses of 'Football's Coming Rome' subsided, and Italy's Coming Rome's Coming Rome's successor will have to defend their Euros title. What they may not have considered was whether or not they would even qualify. It's been 35 years since the reigning champions failed to qualify for a European championship. The 1980s French team was still mourning the departure of their talisman Michel Platini in 1987, and they failed to make the cut in 1988 having gone all the way in 1984.

Fans of football will be familiar with the appearance of red and yellow cards, which have been a staple of the game since the 1970 World Cup in Mexico. However, a white card is perhaps more familiar to those who follow the sport. In Portugal, where the campaign was first introduced, the first two uses of the white card have appeared.

A rare white card has been issued to a Portuguese league player. After the card was issued, the ref and forward shook hands, but a medic came to assist an injured party.

A white card was brandished in Portugal for the first time in a professional game on Saturday. Since being introduced more than 50 years ago, football fans are used to red and yellow cards for fouls and misdemeanours. Portugal has now got a third color in line with a string of new projects throughout the region, which also includes increased stoppage time and concussion substitutes.

Fans cheered enthusiastically as a white card (pictured) was unveiled in a football match for the first time ever. Fans of red and yellow cards have long been a part of the game, but followers may be surprised to learn that a white one has been added to the game as well. During a Sporting Lisbon versus Benfica cup match on Saturday, a referee brandished it. The official displayed the card shortly before halftime in the Taca de Portugal match - the Portuguese equivalent of the FA Cup - received a warm reception from the crowd at the Estadio da Luz. Someone on a bench in the dugout had fallen sick, and medical staff from both teams were quick to assist.

Emmanuel Macron has intervened' in the growing controversy surrounding Noel Le Graet's dismissive remarks about Zinedine Zidane by quoting Michel Platini for the position of football federation chief. If the 1998 World Cup champion inquired about replacing Didier Deschamps as France's boss, Le Graet said he would not even have taken Zidane's call. The 81-year-old French football federation president later apologised and recovered, but it has since escalated to the country's highest level.

BY JAMES SHARPE EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW BY JAMES SHARPE: Paul James holds out his woolly red hat and the man in the suit drops three coins into its muddy depths before disappearing inside Embankment Station. At the first Welshman to play at a World Cup since 1958, a boy dressed in a vampire costume hurries past and pulls a mock-scary face. Another man takes his coffee from the nearby Starbucks. Many others see the man smiling at them from beneath the chequered blanket, prompting them to lift their heads and march ahead. Many more people are going through a flurry of events before focusing on the man who gave an international pitch to Glenn Hoddle and Gary Lineker, as well as Michel Platini of France in 1986.

BY JEFF POWELL – The genius who was otherwise unknown as Pele was born with the gift of amazement. Residents of a poverty-stricken barrio in Sao Paulo would scream as a child from the shanty next door pulled off magical feats in a dusty street with either a rolled up sock or a grapefruit. Goals were from nowhere for Santos first team's 15-year-old boy whose family could not afford a football. He was 16, and he was playing for Brazil at the age of 17. He had scored six goals in four matches in Sweden 1958, becoming Sweden's youngest ever World Cup champion. Pele was only just getting off, but it was just getting off.

Over the years, England and France have met five times in football history, with the fixture bringing a lot of drama. SportsMail has revisited some of the epic clashes between the two teams as they prepare to face the 2022 Qatar World Cup for the sixth time on Saturday night. It's also worth noting that out of those five matches, England has won two while France has won just one, with both ide sides playing out two draws.

According to a joint investigation by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism and The Sunday Times, the so-called 'hack-for-hire' network is suspected to have hacked the personal email accounts of a number of British politicians, government officials, journalists, and businessmen. Mr Mason was suspected in May, just three weeks after being announced as the Corporation's political editor. Mr Hammond was reportedly attacked after Sergei Skripal and his daughter were poisoned by Russian agents in Salisbury in 2018. Michel Platini, the former director of European football, was reportedly sacked just before he was supposed to speak with French police about allegations of misconduct relating to the World Cup in Qatar. Elsewhere, Ignazio Cassis' president was reportedly sacked after meeting Boris Johnson and Liz Truss to discuss Russian sanctions. Mark Fullbrook, Ms Truss' chief of staff, was rumored to have been another high-profile suspect, while Formula One motor racing bosses Ruth Buscombe and Otmar Szafnauer's emails were also broken into.

When England dropped their current kit for this year's World Cup last month, a design split was expressed amongst supporters. Some were all for the touch of Euro 96 blue on the home strip, while others felt the shoulder fade 'looked nothing like an England kit.' On the other hand, the away number, which is an Italia 90 tribute, appears to have the full support of the Three Lions fan base. Because there is such fierce competition, it's unclear if either team would earn a place in the pantheon of classic World Cup kits. Thanks to a combination of unique styles and achievements made while wearing them, the tournament has been one of the most popular strips in football history over the years.

WORLD CUP 2022 INVESTIGATION BY NICK HARRIS: The Mail on Sunday revealed that the deaths of 2,823 foreigners of working age in Qatar have been unexplained – or 'unclassified' to use the term. We've asked the Qatari government how many of these people worked on development projects before 2022, such as roads, hotels, and transportation hubs that will be used by World Cup visitors, but we have no details. We are not saying that these deaths were linked to World Cup or work-related; instead, the number includes migrants from around the world working in various industries. As to whether the true number of work-related deaths on World Cup programmes is just three, the Supreme Committee insists - or thousands, as advocacy organizations such as Human Rights Watch have stated, serious concerns remain unanswered. The Mail on Sunday has published hundreds of case studies involving migrant workers who died on infrastructure projects since 2011 - revealing their personal information and the causes of their death for the first time.