Platini re-elected

Frenchman Michel Platini was re-elected unopposed as president of European football’s governing body UEFA yesterday.

The 55-year-old former European Player of the Year will serve a second mandate of four years, having first been elected in 2007 when he took over from the veteran Swedish administrator Len-nart Johansson.

Since then his reforms have included the democratisation of the flagship Champions League tournament and new ‘financial fair play’ rules obliging European clubs to break even.

“The advantage of this year is that I suspected I was going to win, so I had the time to prepare a few words,” joked Platini.

“After my first election, I particularly thanked my predecessors and, taken by the emotion and a flush of nostalgia, I thanked all those who had accompanied me in my life.

“Today I thank those who work alongside me and who have always supported me. I thank my friends from the national associations. Thank you from the bottom of my heart for your trust.”

In contrast to 2007, when he scored a narrow 27 votes to 23 win over the incumbent Johansson, Platini’s re-election was a straightforward affair as he had no opposition.

Representatives of the 53 federations that make up UEFA gave Platini their official approval with a round of applause during the UEFA Congress at the Grand Palais in Paris yesterday afternoon, thereby negating the need for a vote.

The ensuing vote for seven members in the executive com-mittee saw Malta FA president Norman Darmanin Demajo among the list of 13 candidates.

The ballot required two rounds of voting to determine the new men in charge for the next four years.

Six of the nominees made it past the first round after acquiring half the votes plus one. These were: Angel Maria Villar Llona (Spain) 47 votes; Senes Erzik (Turkey) 42; Peter Gillieron (Switzerland) 40; Grigoriy Surkis (Ukraine) 38; Borislav Mi-haylov (Bulgaria) 28 and Sergey Fursenko (Russia) 27.

Darmanin Demajo did not make the first cut but with countries from Eastern Europe voting en bloc he had little chance for the single seat remaining which eventually went to Romania’s Mircea Sandu with 15 votes.

The MFA head only managed one vote in the second round as Lithuania’s Liutauras Vara­navicius and Gilberto Madail, of Portugal, lost their seat.

Sur­prisingly, the legendary Grzegorz Lato, of Poland, lagged behind as well with two votes.

Platini, Villar Llona and Theo Zwanziger (Germany) will represent the European organi-sation on the FIFA Exco until 2015.

Meanwhile, Platini pledged to re-organise the European football calendar and said he wanted to return international competition to the forefront of the global game.

Asked by journalists for the number one priority of his second term, Platini replied: “The calendar”.

He added: “I can’t give you more information but the calendar is the basis of every­thing, for leagues, international competitions, the Champions League.

“There are 365 days a year and you can’t play every day. You have to find out how to share the calendar between countries and clubs. We’d like to propose a new calendar to FIFA in 2014.”