Former UEFA president Michel Platini has launched civil and criminal proceedings in France against FIFA and its president Gianni Infantino, claiming he was the victim of a plot to block his bid to run global football’s governing body in 2015.Now 70, the Frenchman was the strong favourite to replace Sepp Blatter as FIFA boss following the sprawling corruption scandal that engulfed the governing body in 2015.But Platini, who had run European football since 2007, was dramatically forced out of the race within months of it starting when Swiss prosecutors opened an investigation into a “disloyal payment” of 2million Swiss francs ($2.5million, £1.9million) made by Blatter to the former Juventus and France star in 2011.That cleared the path for Infantino, who had previously been Platini’s deputy at UEFA, to become Europe’s choice for the top job at FIFA, a role he has now held since 2016.In the meantime, both Blatter and Platini received lengthy bans from football, and then faced two separate trials in Switzerland over the 2011 payment. But the pair were acquitted in both trials and then again after an appeal last year.With the threat of prosecution now behind him, Platini seems set on revenge.The civil claim, which will be filed by Platini’s lawyer Olivier Baratelli, is seeking damages from FIFA, while the criminal complaint accuses Infantino, former FIFA audit committee chairman Domenico Scala and ex-FIFA legal director Marco Villiger of malicious prosecution and influence peddling. The criminal complaint will also ask an investigating judge to examine the possible involvement of three senior Swiss judicial officials in the alleged plot.In a statement issued by his spokesman on Monday, Platini claims that he wants it “legally recognised” that he was “taken down” with “entirely fictitious offences” to stop him becoming FIFA president.The timing of this move could not be more damaging for FIFA, as the 2026 World Cup starts in Mexico City on Thursday, with Infantino scheduled to hold a rare media conference on Wednesday.The Athletic has asked FIFA for comment.Platini, a three-time winner of the Ballon d’Or award in the 1980s, is widely considered to be one of football’s greatest players. He also managed France between 1988 and 1992, and then became a key figure in France’s successful staging of the 1998 World Cup.Blatter and Platini have always said the 2011 payment, which only emerged in the wake of Blatter’s downfall, was the belated settling of a debt the former owed the latter for consultancy work done a decade before.FIFA and the Swiss authorities, on the other hand, claimed it was effectively a bribe to make sure Platini delivered UEFA votes to help secure Blatter a fourth term as FIFA boss.Three Swiss courts, once in 2022 and twice in 2025, have sided with Blatter and Platini.‘Another distraction Infantino could do without’Analysis by senior football writer Oliver KayMichel Platini had it all mapped out. He was the legendary footballer who would become the most powerful figure in the sport. In 2007 he became the first former player to be elected president of UEFA, European football’s governing body. In 2015, as Sepp Blatter’s FIFA regime was brought down by a series of scandals and controversies, the former France captain was ready to rule the football world.It didn’t happen. Shortly after Platini announced his plan to run for the FIFA presidency, details emerged of an investigation by Swiss prosecutors into an alleged “disloyal payment” of CHF 2million made to him by Blatter in February 2011. Platini initially fought the allegation but was then found guilty of ethics violations by FIFA and banned from all football activities until 2023. Platini was forced to withdraw from the FIFA presidential election — and into the void stepped Gianni Infantino, previously his deputy at UEFA.Platini, like Blatter, has since cleared his name, but a sense of injustice burns. His lawyers’ statement on Monday evening spoke of a “conspiracy hatched against French soccer player Michel Platini to prevent him from assuming the FIFA presidency that had been promised to him” and said that his new complaint “specifically targets the individuals who worked to eliminate (him) from the race for the FIFA presidency”.Infantino was named in the statement, but previously Platini had suggested his grievances lay elsewhere. In an interview with The Guardian in January, the former UEFA president said, “A group of people decided to kill me”, but he said that Infantino “profited from the situation but was not one of the instigators”.“Infantino wanted to be president of UEFA, which meant he was pushing me towards FIFA,” Platini said.Infantino has repeatedly dismissed criticism of his regime, not least when it comes to the close relationships he has built up with President Trump and other world leaders, but this is yet another distraction the FIFA president could do without just days before the start of the 2026 World Cup.