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The Frenchman, who resigned in May after being banned for
from the sport for four years for ethics violations, was given a
round of applause by the delegates but did not get a standing
ovation.
"Thank you. Thank you for these nine years. I think we did a
great job... Friends of football, farewell," said Platini, who
was first elected in 2007, at the end of his seven-minute
speech.
His replacement was to be elected immediately afterwards with
Slovenia's Aleksander Ceferin and Dutchman Michael van Praag as
the two candidates.
Despite Platini's ban, FIFA's ethics committee said an exception
had been made for the event as a "gesture of humanity."
"It's very emotional for me to be here but I'm also delighted to
be here because this will be my last speech to a UEFA Congress,"
Platini began.
"You are going to continue this wonderful mission without me for
reasons I don't want to go into today.
"I have a clear conscience, I am certain not to have made any
mistake and will continue to fight this in the courts."
One of the finest players of his generation who went on to
become a powerful sporting official, Platini was suspended over
his dealings with fallen world soccer chief Sepp Blatter during
the scandal which shook the sport's global governing body last
year.
Platini was banished along with Blatter over a payment of two
million Swiss francs ($2.08 million) made to the Frenchman by
FIFA with Blatter's approval in 2011 for work done a decade
earlier.
Platini said that football was "a game rather than a product, a
sport rather than a market, a show not a business."
"There isn't one football for large nations and one for small
nations, there is a single football, a single sport, it doesn't
belong to FIFA or UEFA, it belongs to the whole world," he said.
"That is why I wanted to come today to say thank you and,
friends of football, farewell."
(Editing by Amlan Chakraborty)
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