Michel Platini backs out of Fifa election as a self-defence mechanism | David Conn

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Indifference in Fifa’s international ranks to a challenge from a clean-up candidate clears way for fifth term by Sepp Blatter

Michel Platini’s decision not to take on the unwinnable mission of standing against Sepp Blatter for the presidency of Fifa is not so much a bombshell as a deflating squib of confirmation. There was a time only two years ago when the Frenchman was still encouraged to believe Blatter, his mentor in a remarkable transition from midfield playmaker to football administrator, was guiding him in as a successor.

Yet the likelihood of Platini, 59, becoming Fifa president with a hoped-for clean-up agenda of reform has lessened the more the scandals of corruption within football’s world governing body have amassed. Blatter was ushered in unopposed to his fourth four-year term as president in 2011. His challenger, the Qatari Mohamed bin Hammam, had been forced to drop out after wads of dollars were found to have been handed out to Fifa delegates after a meeting with him. The then FA chairman, David Bernstein, gallantly stood on the Fifa deck calling for the one-man election to be postponed, but Blatter had said he wanted to remain captain of the Fifa bateau and steer it to calmer waters.

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