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 Patrick Kanner said he still backed Platini, head of the powerful
European soccer body UEFA, and questioned whether he had been given
a fair hearing by a committee he said was close to the old guard of
the FIFA world soccer body.
FIFA President Sepp Blatter and would-be successor Platini were both
banned from the sport for eight years on Monday for ethics
violations. Both are under scrutiny over a 2011 payment of 2 million
Swiss francs ($2 million) made to Platini with Blatter's approval,
for work done 10 years earlier.
"We know very well that FIFA's ethics committee has been very close
to the former managers, notably Sepp Blatter ... who is perhaps
dragging down with him the man he expected to be his successor but
who was not always the man he wanted to see take his place," Kanner
told Europe 1 radio.
"I regret this because Michel Platini is in a sense being hounded.
Was he able to defend himself under fair conditions? I'm not
convinced."
Platini has vowed to fight the eight-year ban in the world sports
tribunal and even civil proceedings to claim damages over a decision
that he has denounced as a "masquerade".
FIFA said on Monday it "acknowledges the decisions of the
independent Ethics Committee and has no further comment". The
committee operates independently of FIFA; its members are appointed
by the FIFA Congress and cannot be members of any standing
committees.
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For Blatter, the ban brings 17 years at the helm of world soccer,
already tarnished by controversies over the awarding of several
World Cup tournaments and a host of corruption cases against senior
soccer officials, to an end in disgrace.
For Platini, it appears to have killed his chances of being picked
to replace the 79-year-old Swiss at a FIFA Congress in February.
Soccer officials in France, which will host the UEFA European finals
in June, have defended Platini. On Monday the French Football
Federation (FFF) maintained its support, with FFF president Noel Le
Graet saying that he had been saddened and shocked by the former
France midfielder's suspension.
(Writing by Brian Love; additional reporting by Sophie Louet;
Editing by Dominic Evans)
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