How dare the FA say they want Michel Platini cleared and relay that message on behalf of English football

• The FA wished Michel Platini every success in clearing his name
• Platini has been questioned over a suspicious £1.35million payment
• How can the FA take sides in what is now a criminal investigation?
• Did the FA wish Ched Evans every success disputing his rape conviction? 

By Martin Samuel - Sport for the Daily Mail

Published: 16:30 EST, 18 October 2015 | Updated: 16:51 EST, 18 October 2015

Retreating, too late, from their unequivocal backing for Michel Platini, the FA noted the local difficulty he was having finding a contract to explain the £1.35million of Sepp Blatter’s largesse that arrived in his bank account four years ago. They concluded with a message of sincere goodwill.

‘The FA wishes Mr Platini every success in fighting these charges and clearing his name,’ a statement read.

And this means? That they still don’t get it.

How can the FA take sides in what is now a criminal investigation? How can the governing body of English football hope for a specific outcome on FIFA corruption? Did the FA wish the Swiss prosecutors success in nailing the crooks at the heart of football?

FA chairman Greg Dyke (left) gave his support to Michel Platini (right) in the FIFA presidency race

Dyke (left) and UEFA president Platini (right) during a press conference in Geneva late in 2014

No. They hoped that a man who accepted a payment of £1.35m for vague services provided more than a decade earlier, with no contract and no apparent invoice, might find a lawyer smart enough to get him off the hook.

Once we are done with Blatter and Platini, we should have a look at this lot. Not for corruption, but incompetence. How dare they relay that message on behalf of English football? How dare they imply that this country’s dearest wish is for Platini to get lawyered up, beat the rap and assume presidency of FIFA?

And for what? To save their skin. To justify the premature support for Platini’s candidacy extended by FA chairman Greg Dyke, when the presidential race was in its infancy. The FA didn’t even know the list of runners, or what they stood for, when Dyke — under the influence of the equally culpable David Gill — declared for Platini.

Platini has been questioned over a £1.35m payment he received from FIFA in 2011

Now UEFA’s president has been exposed as the worst kind of FIFA insider, they wish him every success in wriggling out of trouble. This is a disgrace without precedent.

Ched Evans is currently trying to clear his name at the Court of Appeal. Has he been wished every success disputing his rape conviction, too?

Did the FA wish John Terry every success in fighting the charge against him when entering Westminster Magistrates Court in 2012?

And how about Blatter? He denies it all, the same as Platini. Will the FA also be in his corner against these pesky prosecutors?

Of course not — because it is not for the governing body to choose sides in matters of legal process. All they can do is observe dispassionately, hope justice prevails and react accordingly to the verdict.

Former Sheffield United striker Ched Evans has been fighting to clear his name after being convicted of rape

John Terry at Westminster Magistrates Court in 2012 in relation to an incident with Anton Ferdinand

The stance on Platini represents a radical departure from the neutral position. Maybe the FA also have a fresh take on the £50,000 fine recently administered to Jose Mourinho, by them. Do they wish him every success in fighting their charge against him, too?

And here’s the irony. Even if Platini wasn’t a crook, he would still be a wholly unsuitable president of FIFA, and unworthy of FA support — because he’s not very good. Barely a month passes without further evidence of his poor leadership and inadequate reasoning.

Take the seeding arrangements for the 2016 European Championship. The first phase of qualifying concluded last week. Northern Ireland won Group F, a remarkable achievement. And where will they be seeded in December’s finals draw? Pot four. Above them, in pot three, Romania — the country they beat into second place.

It is the same for Wales. They will be in pot four, too, having finished second to Belgium in Group B. And that may make sense, unless one considers that Bosnia-Herzegovina, who they relegated to third place by four clear points, could yet end up in pot two, if they can overcome the Republic of Ireland in the play-offs.

Jose Mourinho recently received a £50,000 fine, something the Chelsea manager was unhappy with

Northern Ireland won their qualifying group but will be in pot four for the European Championship in 2016

This is because UEFA co-efficient rankings date back to performances from the 2010-11 season and the most recent qualifying campaign accounts for only 40 per cent of points.

Yet in the Champions League this year, Platini finally conceded that the title winners in major countries should be the top seeds, affording them priority over clubs such as Arsenal, who had amassed significant co-efficient points without delivering a trophy.

Platini came to the idea late, and didn’t extend the new system throughout the seedings, so consistent Champions League failure still counts for more than winning the title in, say, Sweden — but it was at least a start.

Yet, having alighted on the right principle, Platini didn’t care to introduce it to UEFA’s premier international tournament. Northern Ireland’s magnificent performance in qualifying remains inferior to Russia squeaking into second place in Group G, eight points behind Austria. Switzerland finished nine points adrift of England yet can avoid Italy and Croatia. Northern Ireland cannot.

Platini poses as an ally of the smaller nations — diluting the European Championship by expanding it to 24 teams — but still treats them as second class. And this is the man that inspired the FA’s rush to judgment.

Platini and FIFA president Sepp Blatter (right) pictured at the World Cup in Brazil last year

So now begins the fight to clear his name. Platini must find a way of validating a £1.35m payment for services rendered between January 1999 and June 2002 that was only put through in 2011, shortly before he announced he would not stand against Blatter in a FIFA election. No paperwork frames this transaction, which Blatter has since suggested was a ‘gentlemen’s agreement’ — a revelation that plays fast and loose with both accepted business practice and the English language.

Equally, what was Platini doing to justify such a sum? The Premier League is the most successful football business in the world. Even now, its chief executive is worth a salary of £800,000. Yet Platini could pull in a £1.35m contract close to 17 years ago.

The timeline is even fishier than it sounds. The accepted wisdom is that Platini waited nine years for his payment, but he didn’t. He waited 12. An agreement is made at the start of a working period, not the end. You don’t go to work all year and then find out the terms of your contract. A builder prices the job at the start, not on completion.

Platini would have known what his input was worth in 1999, not 2002, making his reluctance to push for so much as an advance even more curious.

Although not to the FA. They just want him cleared. Maybe they feel the same about the others on FIFA’s grand list of the accused. So why don’t they just come out and say it, to remind us all what they really stand for? Nice and loud, too, so we can all hear.

My advice? Come clean on Kroenke’s £3m

Sir Chips Keswick, the Arsenal chairman, was most affronted. ‘I am not Mr Platini and I am not Mr Blatter,’ he told shareholders at the Annual General Meeting. ‘There is not a written whatever-you-want because good advice is where you can get it and how you can get it, and if you get good advice then you succeed. The fees were advisory. You cannot codify how many times we have taken advice or how we have taken it. I will make no attempt to do so.’ Then, in a way that was not at all like football’s great dictators, Arsenal’s chairman said he would close the meeting if he was asked another question on the subject.

So we still do not know what Arsenal owner Stan Kroenke does for his £3million in consultancy fees; we remain unaware of the service that is approximately twice as valuable as the basic salary of chief executive Ivan Gazidis. All we can say is that Kroenke must have provided exactly the same amount of useful advice last year, too, because he was paid the same money then. What a remarkable coincidence.

Arsenal owner Stan Kroenke (left) received £3million from the club in consultancy fees

Was there due process, or a tender?

Did Arsenal’s board look around to see if anyone else was interested in this advice-giving lark, and would charge a more competitive rate? For a club that quibbled over the value of Luis Suarez to the last £1, handing £3m to the first chap with an opinion just because he happens to be handy seems a rather cavalier way to do business. And no contract, either. That’s a rarity, too, one imagines.

You should see the requirements to be so much as a casual match-day steward at the Emirates Stadium. ‘Relevant customer service experience, the ability to communicate effectively with all guest types working in a fast paced and busy environment, desire to achieve targets, live and breathe “The Arsenal Way”…’ — it certainly sounds like the sort of job that would have at least a little paperwork attached. To stand in an aisle wearing a yellow hi-viz, Arsenal wouldn’t just take the first applicant and lob him an arbitrary sum. There would be a contract — just as there was for Alex Iwobi, a 19-year-old forward who hasn’t made a single appearance in the first-team, but signed a new deal on October 6. No gentlemen’s agreements there, either.

Kroenke (second left) with Arsenal chairman Sir Chips Keswick during their win over Watford

‘We don’t want speeches,’ Sir Chips loftily told a shareholder who dared to question Kroenke’s consultancy fee. Indeed we don’t. We just want plainly understood answers — and sadly that’s the one thing Arsenal, Blatter and Platini are struggling to provide.

Cost of BBC hipocrisy? Priceless 

The BBC are very concerned about the average ticket price at a Premier League game. Their investigators claim it is £30. That’s steep, but not quite as expensive as an event taking place at the SSE Arena in Belfast on December 20 — the BBC Sports Personality of the Year show, cheapest ticket £45. 

The cheapest ticket for BBC's Sports Personality of the Year show in Belfast this year is £45

By comparison, the lowest price for Disney on Ice in Belfast next month will be £18.50, at WWE £20, Mrs Brown £25, for U2 and Kevin Bridges £33, Michael McIntyre £38. 

Even One Direction only charge £43.50. Funny how the BBC have a different idea of football’s worth, and their own. Whatever happened to Twenty’s Plenty?

And while we're at it... 

Pakistan time-wasted their way to a first Test draw on Saturday. It should not have been allowed. In the event of a run chase, if adequate floodlighting is available, umpires should set a minimum number of overs that must be bowled to end the match. That would prevent another farce like the one that occurred in Abu Dhabi — the match curtailed, just as it became most interesting. 

England's first Test against Pakistan in Abu Dhabi ended in a farcical draw due to fading light

Neil Warnock is back at Queens Park Rangers, as adviser to the first team. Considering his last three jobs in football management have ended with Rangers 17th in the Premier League, Crystal Palace 18th and Leeds United 12th in the Championship but five points off relegation, his initial advice to Chris Ramsey might be to seek great insights elsewhere. 

Former Crystal Palace manager Neil Warnock has landed himself a new job at QPR as an advisor

All Black magic has the world under it's spell

When the All Blacks’ third-choice loosehead prop, Charlie Faumuina, set up the seventh try with an offload that would have constituted the highlight of England’s World Cup campaign, it was confirmed we were watching possibly the finest team performance in the history of the competition. 

They could all play, every last one. Two more tries followed as New Zealand beat France 62-13 — a record winning margin for the RWC knock-out stage. 

New Zealand produced a breathtaking performance to blow out France in the Rugby World Cup quarter-finals

New Zealand's third choice loosehead prop Charlie Faumuina in action at the Millennium Stadium

Julian Savea’s second try, in which he flattened three ambitious French tacklers, repelling them as if flicking bugs off a night-table, may yet be the individual highlight of the tournament — although Dan Carter’s performance would run it close. 

Whatever, it was a privilege to see the sport played at such an exalted level, and a reminder of how far the northern hemisphere nations have to climb to breathe the same air. 

As for New Zealand’s opponents, if they cannot play like France, they should at least look like them. Those red shirts got exactly what they deserved.

On October 31, the Rugby World Cup will be over. The circus will pack up, the coaches will leave town. 

And then, 17 days later, the RFU will sit down to discuss England’s failed campaign and a potential successor to Stuart Lancaster, with many of the candidates back home or embarking on new projects. There is no calamity so great it cannot be further mismanaged by the RFU. 

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