Michel Platini has been re-elected as UEFA president until 2015, vowing to battle the ‘scourges’ of violence in stadiums and match-fixing.
The 55-year-old former France captain, who has been in the post since 2007, was re-elected unopposed at the UEFA Congress in Switzerland on Tuesday.
His policies of opening up European club competitions to lower-ranked teams and toughening financial rules on clubs to crack down on reckless spending have made him popular amongst member nations, and Platini vowed to continue to fight to reduce crowd violence.
“There is no place in football for those who transform passion into violence and pride into sectarianism,” Platini said.
“Every country should establish a whole battery of legal measures enabling them to ban hooligans from stadiums. Every country should appoint a prosecutor in charge of illegal betting and corruption in sport.”
“I have started meeting the heads of state and government of countries particularly affected by this problem. It is important that their countries realise the seriousness of the situation and that they find a way to help us, you and their national associations.”
Another policy of Platini’s has been to introduce financial fair play rules in order to help curb sky-rocketing expenses at clubs around Europe.Under the new rules, clubs in European competition will only be able to spend on transfers and wages what they earn in revenues.
“This project should enable us to prevent some of our most time-honoured clubs from going under because of risky management by an irresponsible few,” Platini said.
“In 1984 Jacques Georges (ex-UEFA president) used a phrase that I have been drumming home constantly for months and thought I had coined myself: ‘We all know what it means if we spend more than we earn, and in football it would mean the end of the game.’
“On the topic of club finances, allow me to remind you of just one figure: together, Europe’s professional clubs accumulated net losses of 1.2 billion euros in 2009 alone.”
“So yes, there is a huge amount of money in football, but more importantly there is a moral problem in the way this money is sometimes generated and used.”
“Financial fair play is a crucial project that will enable us to clean up certain practices within our game.”"It will be implemented in full in the course of my next term and we will apply the rules with the courage and resolution for which UEFA should be known.”
Tue 22 March, 2011
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