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 Bookmakers' odds on Platini to win the February vote have markedly
lengthened since Friday when Swiss police placed president of 17
years Sepp Blatter under criminal investigation and accused him of
making a "disloyal payment" of 2 million Swiss francs ($2.05
million) to Platini in 2011 for work deemed to have been performed
between January 1999 and June 2002.
Both Platini and Blatter deny wrongdoing over the affair, part of a
broader scandal that began unfolding in May when 14 soccer officials
and marketing executives were indicted in the United States for
bribery, money laundering and wire fraud.
But a number of federations say they might review support for
Platini depending on results of an inquiry into the payment.
While not dropping their backing for Platini, the English, German
and Italian federations have expressed concerns over the allegations
while the Swedish FA said the case could interfere with their
support.
The European soccer federation UEFA said Platini had met with
investigators as a witness; but on Tuesday, Swiss Attorney General
Michael Lauber said Platini was considered as somewhere "between a
witness and an accused person".
"INTEGRITY CHECK"
Platini said on Wednesday the nine-year delay between his work as an
advisor to Blatter and the payment, was because FIFA were unable to
pay his full salary in 2002 because of their financial situation.
FIFA's 2002 financial report cited a 115 million Swiss Franc surplus
for the period 1999-2002.
England's FA issued a statement after a meeting on Wednesday,
recalling it had unanimously backed Platini in July.
"We did so because we thought he was an excellent President of UEFA
and could bring those same leadership qualities to FIFA. We are
still of that view.
"However, events of recent days have raised a number of issues which
do need to be fully examined. We are following the ongoing
investigation initiated by the Swiss Attorney General with which Mr
Platini is co-operating in full."
The German football federation, the DFB, had been one of the first
federations to throw their weight behind Platini in July after
Blatter, now facing investigation under suspicion of criminal
mismanagement and misappropriation, announced he would be stepping
down.
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"Part of a serious administration is to look carefully at what it is
about and whether there is indeed misconduct," DFB president
Wolfgang Niersbach told the Frankfurter Rundschau newspaper.
The Feb. 26 election will take place in Zurich, and each of FIFA's
209 national associations will have one vote.
In July, Italian Football Federation head Carlo Tavecchio said
Platini would be the right person to lead FIFA reform.
But speaking on Italian radio this week, Tavecchio said that it was
too soon to comment on the specifics of this case involving Platini,
but that the Italians were waiting to see how judicial proceedings
developed.
Swedish FA chair Karl-Erik Nilsson told Reuters: "At the moment we
have no other opinion than support for Platini. What has happened
can obviously interfere with that, but we in the SvFF have
confidence in Platini."
Separate from any investigation, Platini must pass the FIFA
'integrity check' if the body's Election Committee is to accept him
as a candidate.
According to FIFA's statutes and regulations, the check involves a
self-declaration where candidates must state if they are in
compliance with the FIFA Ethics Code.
That code includes a series of specific activities that FIFA
officials must avoid and also contains a general section which says
officials "must refrain from any activity or behavior that might
give rise to the appearance or suspicion of improper conduct".
(Additional reporting by Brian Homewood in Zurich; Philip O'Connor
in Stockholm and Karolos Grohmann in Berlin; editing by Ralph
Boulton)
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