Former UEFA president, Michel Platini, was released from custody in the early hours of Wednesday, after being grilled as part of a corruption investigation, into the awarding of the 2022 World Cup to Qatar.
Platini told reporters afterwards, that he was expecting to be questioned as a witness as he was 18 months ago and was “hurt” when he was taken into custody instead.
“It hurts. It hurts for everything I can think of, everything I’ve done. It hurts, it hurts.
But after all, they did their job and then we tried to answer all the questions,” he said.
Platini revealed investigators quizzed him about an array of tournaments, including the 2016 European Championship, the World Cups in Russia in 2018 and in Qatar in 2022.
The Frenchman influenced where these tournaments would be played, as the president of UEFA and as a vice-president at FIFA.
The investigators also asked about French club Paris Saint-Germain, which was bought by Qatar in 2011.
William Bourdon, Platini’s lawyer, said his client was innocent of all charges and that he had been questioned on “technical grounds”.
“It was long, but given the number of questions, it could not be different.
“I feel totally foreign to any of these matters. This is an old affair, you know it, we explained it. I have always expressed myself with full transparency in all the newspapers. That’s it, it goes on, they investigate, they search,” Platini added.
The 63-year-old was taken into custody on Tuesday morning and held at premises of the Anti-Corruption Office of the Judicial Police (OCLCIFF).
- DAILY POST
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