Former French football star Michel Platini, whose career at club and national team level was capped by eight years as president of UEFA, the body governing European association football, and who is now cited in separate investigations into corruption and fraud in France and Switzerland, told a close friend that President Emmanuel Macron “said that he would help me” with his legal affairs, according to police transcripts of a tapped phone conversation in May 2019 and seen by Mediapart.
In March 2018, the French president discreetly met with meeting with Platini at the Élysée Palace, the presidential office, when the pair discussed the legal situation facing the former UEFA boss, according to a French journalist and friend of his who was present.
The Élysée has denied that the subject was discussed.
Platini, 65, is at the centre of an ongoing judicial investigation in France into suspected corruption behind the controversial decision in December 2010 by world football governing body FIFA to award Qatar as host country for the 2022 World Cup. The probe is notably attempting to ascertain whether Platini, then UEFA president and a member of the FIFA executive committee panel which met to decide which of five candidate countries would be awarded the games, agreed to cast his vote for Qatar after a meeting in November 2010 at the Élysée with then French president Nicolas Sarkozy and the then Crown Prince of Qatar Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani (see more here).
Meanwhile, Platini was formally placed under investigation in Switzerland last month on suspicion of being an accomplice to criminal mismanagement, of misappropriation and an act of forgery in relation to a payment of 2 million Swiss francs (about 1.8 million euros) made to him in 2011 by FIFA boss Sepp Blatter. The long-running case began in 2015, when the payment was first revealed, and cost Platini his job as head of UEFA, ended his hopes of succeeding Blatter at FIFA, and led to him being banned from professional football activities for four years. Platini and Blatter said the remuneration was the result of an “oral agreement” for work carried out ten years earlier when Platini was an advisor for Blatter, and both men have firmly denied any wrongdoing.
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Platini claimed he had been the victim of a plot by Blatter and FIFA officials to discredit him, and filed a complaint in France for “false accusations” over the affair. The documents cited in this report reveal how he and influential allies actively lobbied the French public prosecution services to open a judicial investigation into his complaint. It was in this context, and while he was implicated in the investigation into the circumstances of the World Cup award to Qatar, that he spoke of receiving a pledge of “help” from Macron.
Macron’s perception of the independence of the justice system has already been called into question by Mediapart’s recent revelations of how he personally intervened in an investigation into a potential conflict of interest involving his chief of staff, Alexis Kohler, after which the case was dropped.
In November last year, Macron made a remarkable public tribute to Platini when the latter appeared as a guest on French radio show, six months after the former UEFA boss was taken into police custody for questioning in the investigation into suspected corruption behind the 2022 World Cup award. In a recorded message played on air, the French president spoke of his admiration and gratitude towards Platini, and how he understood the latter’s “feeling of injustice” over his legal woes.
That statement, by a head of state who, under Article 64 of the French constitution, is the guarantor of “judicial independence and authority”, raises further questions over Platini’s claims.
The extracts from the transcripts of the police phone taps detailed further below appear to suggest the personal involvement of a high-ranking French magistrate close to Macron, Michel Debacq, in using his influence to help Platini with the progress of his filed complaint, although he had no official reason to become involved.
The chief Paris public prosecutor, Catherine Champrenault, has confirmed that she was made aware in June 2019 of the contents of the tapped phone conversations, and that she subsequently alerted the justice ministry to the facts with a view to possible disciplinary action against Debacq. Meanwhile, the head of the financial crimes branch of the prosecution services, Jean-François Bohnert, under whose authority the phone taps were carried out, has said no criminal investigation was opened because the justice ministry was already made aware of the disturbing conversations.
Contacted by Mediapart, Debacq said he had met Platini on three occasions at an “amicable” level, and that he regarded his relationship with the former football star as a matter of his “private life”.
The phone transcripts demonstrate that over the past two years there were numerous contacts made between the Élysée, Michel Platini, Michel Debacq and several intermediaries. The taps were ordered in separate criminal investigations, and are now compiled together as evidence in the probe into suspected corruption behind the Qatar 2022 World Cup award.
The story they reveal is presented here in three parts.
- I. The 'discreet' meeting between Emmanuel Macron and Michel Platini
On September 25th 2015, federal prosecutors in Switzerland arrived at the Zurich headquarters of football worldwide governing body FIFA to question its then president, Sepp Blatter. Their move was part of an investigation into Blatter and Michel Platini, then head of the European football governing body UEFA, over a payment made to Platini and signed off by Blatter, of 2 million Swiss francs (about 1.8 million euros) in January 2011.
The payment requested by Platini and agreed by Blatter was explained by both men as being for work Platini allegedly carried out between 1999 and 2001, when the former footballer was an outside consultant to Blatter, then in his first term as FIFA president. The work, they said, was the subject of an “oral agreement”. But fuelling suspicions was the timing of Platini’s invoice for the payment, nine years after the alleged work was carried out and just one month after the controversial awarding of the 2022 World Cup to Qatar.
In June 2015, Blatter had announced he would stand down as FIFA president following the eruption of a string of scandals at the federation, including the arrests in Zurich earlier that year of several of its officials wanted in the US on corruption charges, and the opening by Swiss authorities of an investigation into suspected corruption over the awarding of the 2018 and 2022 World Cups to, respectively, Russia and Qatar.
Platini had been tipped to succeed Blatter as head of FIFA, but the revelations over the payment of the 2 million Swiss francs scuppered his hopes. In December 2015, the FIFA ethics committee handed both Blatter and Platini an eight-year ban on any football-related professional activity, describing the alleged oral agreement as “not convincing”, and finding that both men acted in “a conflict of interest”.
Platini appealed the ruling, first before FIFA, which reduced the ban to six years, and again in May 2016 before the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS), which further reduced it to four years. However, the CAS panel judging the case ruled that it was “not convinced of the legitimacy” of the payment signed off by Blatter, and said Platini had received “undue advantage” in a conflict of interest that breached FIFA’s code of ethics.
Forced to immediately resign as head of UEFA, and by the same token to give up his ambition of presiding FIFA, Platini has continued to denounce what he called a “profound injustice”. He claims to be the victim of a plot hatched by Blatter who he alleges informed the Swiss authorities about the payment in order to prevent him succeeding him as head of FIFA.
In July 2017, Platini lost his appeal before a Swiss court against the CAS decision. Within months, he was caught up in another case.
In December 2017, he was questioned by the financial crimes branch (PNF) of the French public prosecution services as part of their preliminary investigations into suspected corruption in the awarding of the 2022 World Cup to Qatar, when Platini’s home in the south-west Paris suburb of Saint-Cloud was searched.
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Mediapart has learnt that three months later, on March 8th 2018, he obtained a discreet meeting with President Emmanuel Macron at the Élysée Palace, the presidential office, in the company of his friend, the journalist Jacques Vendroux, head of the sports desk at public broadcaster Radio France. The meeting was never recorded on the president’s official agenda.
Vendroux told Mediapart that the meeting was held in a reception room adjoining the president’s office. He said it was he, who also enjoyed amicable relations with Macron, who set up the encounter.
Vendroux recounted. “I organised the meeting. We spoke about football, about [Platini’s former clubs] Juventus, Saint-Étienne, the France team, the ’84 win [the European championships won by a France team captained by Platini] the 98 win [by France of the World Cup].”
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“It was a very agreeable, very nice conversation,” he added. “That of a president who wanted to meet one of the best players in the world, and Michel who wanted to meet the youngest president in the history of the Fifth Republic, who is a supporter of [Marseille football club] and who, somewhat, likes him, because he likes football.”
Vendroux said the subject of the investigations into Platini was not at the centre of the conversation, but that it was raised when Macron “at one point” asked the former UEFA boss what his situation was at present. Platini, said Vendroux, gave “a summary of the situation that lasted three or four minutes”. The journalist later said: “It lasted seven or eight minutes, it was very technical, I didn’t understand everything.”
“The president never said, ‘I’m going to take care of you’, never, never, never,” insisted Vendroux. “He never said, ‘I’m going to help you’. He said, I don’t know, perhaps he uttered a phrase along the lines of ‘I’ll have a look’, but Michel asked for nothing. And the president promised nothing. I was there, I was a witness, I was in the office.”
Contacted by Mediapart, the Élysée Palace “categorically” denied Vendroux’s account. “The president, who takes an interest in football, received the football player, the icon, Michel Platini, but in no manner Michel Platini [as a person] subject to legal proceedings,” it said in a statement. “The president perfectly knows that he cannot discuss the individual case of [a person] subject to legal proceedings.”
Concerning the fact that the meeting was not recorded on Macron’s official agenda, the Élysée said this represented “nothing abnormal”, adding: “This must not be regarded as a will to dissimulate. It concerned a discreet meeting. Which is a common thing regarding sporting, cultural or artistic matters.”
Soon after the March 8th 2018 meeting, in May, Platini’s lawyer in Switzerland announced that he had received an assurance from the Swiss federal prosecution services that the investigation into the 2011 payment made by FIFA boss Sepp Blatter to Platini was not led against the latter, and that Platini “will not be charged”. However, last month the prosecution services announced they were investigating Platini as a suspected accomplice to Blatter in the case.
But the May 2018 announcement by his lawyer in Switzerland led Platini to believe he was legally cleared of any wrongdoing.
Shortly after, on June 10th 2018, Emmanuel Macron was interviewed on the popular TV programme Téléfoot, broadcast by France’s TF1 channel. The programme’s presenter Christian Jeanpierre asked Macron for his reaction to the news that Platini was “cleared last week by the Swiss justice system”.
“I’m very glad about it,” the French president told Jeanpierre. “And I wish that he retrieves all of his position […] he still has a role to play.”
In September 2018, Platini’s French lawyer William Bourdon filed a complaint on his client’s behalf for “false accusations” and criminal conspiracy “to commit the crime of false accusations”, and which targeted those Platini believed were behind the allegations against him, namely Sepp Blatter and FIFA’s former legal affairs director Marco Villiger. Both men have denied the suggestion.
The lawsuit however raised legal complications. While Platini, via his lawyer in Switzerland, had a letter from the Swiss prosecutors indicating that he would not be the subject of criminal proceedings, the ban from taking part in professional football activities served against him by the FIFA disciplinary hearing had been upheld by a Swiss court. That made it problematic to find fault in a move by FIFA officials to alert Swiss prosecutors to the controversial payment made to Platini.
On top of this, the events took place in Switzerland, which raised questions over the validity of the involvement of the French justice system, unless it could be demonstrated that the Swiss justice system had shown impartiality – which Platini was convinced was the case. His view was reinforced by the Football Leaks revelations published in late 2018 by Mediapart and its partners in the journalistic consortium European Investigative Collaborations (EIC) that FIFA president Gianni Infantino, who took up office in early 2016, had met secretly with Swiss Attorney General Michael Lauber. Swiss francophone daily and EIC partner La Tribune de Genève reported this April that Infantino and Lauber had discussed a probe that concerned the FIFA president in person and that Infantino had sought that prosecutors to drop the case, which was indeed finally abandoned.
The Paris prosecution services opened a preliminary investigation into the complaint filed by Platini on October 17th 2018, but it was not until eight months later, on May 14th 2019, that he was finally questioned about the matter. Platini is understood to be eager that the preliminary investigation be soon replaced by a full judicial investigation, led by an independent examining magistrate, before the end, on October 8th last year, of his four-year ban from professional football activities.
- II. Senior magistrate Michel Debacq: “I did what was needed.”
Platini is a friend of Jean-Pierre Chanal, the deputy general manager of the municipal services department of the southern French port city of Marseille. In an unrelated investigation into suspected fraud at Marseille City Hall (see more here) the financial crime branch of the French public prosecution services, the PNF, placed Chanal under phone tap surveillance. One of the monitored conversations was between Chanal and Platini on May 24th 2019.
“We were questioned by the inspector like I told you,” Platini told Chanal. “The prosecutor, he says the witnesses you have cited will be questioned and afterwards a decision will be taken on whether we progress or not, if…” – at which point Chanal cuts in: “If a judicial investigation is opened or not”. Platini confirms this: “If a judicial investigation is opened, but Bourdon doesn’t feel him very […] motivated to open a thing.”
Contacted by Mediapart, Platini’s then lawyer William Bourdon declined to comment, citing professional confidentiality.
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Further into the same conversation, Platini told Chanal: “Me, I’ve sent a thingummy to the Élysée saying that the president said that he would help me,” adding that, “It’d be good that he shows that now, eh.”
“I must do [something] on my side too, eh?” Chanal asked Platini. “Yes, on your side,” replied Platini.
“I’m going to call Michel this very afternoon,” Chanal then told Platini.
Chanal was referring to senior magistrate Michel Debacq, the former head of the Paris prosecution services’ anti-terrorist branch and who is now counsel for the prosecution at France’s highest court, the Cour de cassation, the supreme court of appeal.
Debacq is regarded as a left-leaning figure – he was a close advisor to former socialist justice minister Christiane Taubira – and is close to Emmanuel Macron, to whom he leant his support during the latter’s 2017 presidential election campaign. Debacq is also regarded as a man of influential networks; he enjoyed close relations with Éliane Houlette, head of the PNF between January 2014 and April 2019, and in one tapped phone conversation he boasted of having been behind the appointment in 2019 of Jean-François Ricard as head of the revamped Paris prosecution services’ anti-terrorist section. It was Debacq who approached lawyer William Bourdon to represent Platini with his legal actions.
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Questioned by Mediapart, Debacq said that Jean-Pierre Chanal “is a friend of mine since almost 40 years, and through him I became acquainted, about three years ago, with Michel Platini. On an always amicable level I met [Michel Platini] on three occasions in Paris, and the last time was an occasion to give me a signed copy of his latest book. I was delighted to recommend to him William Bourdon, who is also a friend, to help him with the lawsuits that he wanted [to file].
On May 28th 2019, four days after the tapped phone conversation cited further above, Chanal sent a phone text message to Debacq, the contents of which are recorded in a report in the case file of the Marseille City Hall investigation. This says that Chanal’s text message was to give Debacq “news of his friend [Michel Platini] for whom William [Bourdon] is worried, fearing that there be no follow up [judicial investigation], and asking him what he thought about that”.
The next day, Swiss francophone weekly magazine L’Illustré published a report detailing the suspected collusion between Switzerland’s attorney general and FIFA president Gianni Infantino. It prompted Platini, who the magazine said “appears to have been the victim of a clever setup which at the time ruined his chances of acceding to the FIFA presidency”, to get back in touch with Macron’s office. In an exchange with Chanal on the same day as the article was published, on May 29th 2019, Platini told his friend: “I’ve sent [the article] to the Élysée, I sent [it] to the head of sports at the Élysée. I said it would be about time to save the French citizen.”
In reply, Chanal told Platini he had sent the same article to Michel Debacq, accompanied with a note saying that he would find in it “all the good reasons that could justify an offensive approach”. With a play on football terms, Chanal added that “it’s gone straight to Michel [Debacq]. Counter attack, straight to goal […] I hit the net”.
Three days later, on June 1st 2019, Debacq and Chanal held a phone conversation. The previous day, Debacq had lunched with Bourdon when the subject of Platini’s case was discussed. Debacq gave Chanal disappointing news. “I don’t want to follow up,” he told his friend, who said he understood: “Yes. […] you don’t want to get into that, of course, shouldn’t do so.”
During their exchange, Debacq made clear that neither Platini nor his close entourage had asked him “to do more”. Chanal interrupted him, saying: “Of course Michel, besides, there is no question of more.”
The magistrate continued: “Right, that being said, as I told him, I did what was needed a while ago.”
“I remember that very well,” replied Chanal.
“But that being said also, we’re not going to constantly renew [efforts], all the more so given that the ones and the others, you’ve seen, are somewhat occupied,” said Debacq.
Mediapart contacted the Paris public prosecution services about Debacq’s comment “I did what was needed a while ago”. They replied that on the subject of the procedure following Platini’s formal complaint for false accusations against him, “the Paris public prosecutor Rémy Heitz had no exchange with a person from outside the Paris prosecution services”.
Debacq did not answer questions Mediapart submitted to him about the matter.
Meanwhile, Debacq’s involvement appeared to have been sufficiently important for Chanal to raise it again in a tapped phone conversation on June 5th 2019 with another of his friends, and who also knew Platini. “What worries me eventually is that the Paris prosecutor finally considers finally that there are not sufficient charges [in evidence] in the case to warrant opening a judicial investigation,” Chanal told the mutual friend, before returning to Debacq’s role. “Well anyway, it’s not Michel [Debacq] who is the prosecutor, he’s not the lawyer. He has said he can’t do more. If it was him who was in the post, the [judicial] investigation would already be opened.” Chanal added that Debacq could not “be more involved than he has been”.
In parallel to the preliminary probe by the prosecution services into Platini’s formal complaint, a separate preliminary investigation by the PNF into suspected corruption over the awarding to Qatar of the 2022 World Cup was making swift progress.
It was as part of that investigation that Platini was placed in custody for questioning on the morning of June 18th 2019 by officers from the police anti-corruption unit OCLCIFF. He was finally released at 1am the next day.
On June 19th, Debacq sent a phone text message to Chanal. “How is our friend?” he asked, ending with “Kisses to you. Michel.” In a separate exchange ten days later, as recorded in the official investigation, the two men deplored the conditions in which Platini had been held in custody. Debacq, the case file notes, remarked that “all that was not professional and the proximity with the press was scandalous” – apparently referring to the fact that the media reported Platini’s questioning in custody as of the morning of June 18th.
Chanal took the opportunity to discuss the movements within the hierarchy of magistrates, and notably the departure of PNF boss Éliane Houlette which, the case file notes, he said he was interested about “at a personal level”. As Mediapart revealed at the end of last month, at the time Chanal was hoping to find an arrangement that would limit the scope of the PNF investigations into the suspected fraud at Marseille City Hall in which he was implicated.
Debacq told Chanal that he would talk about the matter when the two men next met together, adding that he had much to tell him. Debacq did not reply to questions submitted to him by Mediapart on what it was he planned to inform Chanal about.
In the police report on the tapped conversation, the end of the exchange was described as characterising “a proximity and amicable relationship” between the two men, in which Chanal proposed organising for Debacq, along with his wife and children, a holiday stay in Marseille.
Debacq continued to be involved in talks with Chanal about helping Platini’s situation, and in one phone conversation in July 2019 they again spoke of the need for the prosecution services to recommend the opening of a judicial investigation into the former UEFA boss’s complaint for false accusations, in which they agreed it would be “beneficial” for him with regard to the probe into suspected corruption over the awarding of the 2022 World Cup to Qatar.
The Paris public prosecution services confirmed to Mediapart that on June 14th 2019, after learning of Debacq’s involvement in Platini’s affairs, it had alerted the justice ministry of his possible breach of ethical regulations.
Jean-Pierre Chanal did not respond to mediapart's attempts to contact him for comment.
- III. Emmanuel Macron's sympathy for Michel Platini's “feeling of injustice”
On October 28th last year, Platini’s lawyer William Bourdon told French daily Le Monde that the Paris prosecution services had finally decided not to continue with the investigation into his complaint for false accusations, but instead to pass the case over to the Swiss prosecution services “in view of the acceleration of the revelations in Switzerland”.
It was something of a half victory for Platini, given that the case had not been formally dropped by the French prosecutors, and their passing of the probe into his complaint on to the Swiss gave it a degree of support.
Questioned as to whether Platini had been given beneficial treatment, the Paris prosecution services told Mediapart that there had been no outside influence to the case, insisting that after receiving the results of the police investigation into his complaint, “the Paris prosecution services, on October 21st 2019, had officially denounced the facts to the Swiss authorities because of the domiciliation in Switzerland of the people placed in question in the complaint, [because also] of the committing of the alleged false accusations on Swiss territory, [and also] the accusations made against the Swiss prosecution services, as well as the necessary appreciation of the false accusations with regard to the events into which an investigation was ongoing in Switzerland.”
Just more than a week after the announcement that the case was being handed over to the Swiss authorities, Platini was given a remarkable public demonstration of support from President Emmanuel Macron. Platini, whose four-year ban from professional football activities had expired the previous month, was involved in a major promotional campaign for his newly published book Entre nous (Between us), and was the guest of a programme on radio station RTL broadcast on November 7th 2019. The programme’s presenter, Thomas Sotto, announced that one of the many French presidents Platini had met had a special message for him (see the video recording of the studio programme below, in French).
It was a recorded “little message of friendship” from Macron, who began, “Dear Michel, dear Platoche”, referring to the former footballer’s nickname. “I know that the last years have been hard, that the wounds were sometimes deep, that the feeling of injustice is there too,” said Macron. “And, deep down, I had a message, it is this message of an admirer, this message of thanks, and this message that consists of telling you, you have still many things to give to French football and to French youngsters […] So, bravo, thank you and come back, that would make me happy.”
Underlining his understanding of Platini’s “feeling of injustice, the president’s tribute to a person implicated in an ongoing judicial investigation – into the suspected corruption behind the 2022 World cup award – represented a startling snub to the notion of the “separation of powers” in France that is supposed to protect the independence of the justice system from interference by the political executive. The message was all the more troubling given the contents of the tapped phone conversations in which, five months earlier, Platini claimed Macron had pledged to “help me”.
Contacted by Mediapart, a spokesperson for the Élysée said of Platini’s claim: “Michel Platini is wrong to that. It is not possible. The president is the guarantor of the independence of the justice system.” They added that Macron’s tribute on the RTL radio programme was a “message of friendship, without the wish to weigh upon the course of justice”.
Meanwhile, a judicial investigation into the suspected corruption behind the awarding of the 2020 World cup to Qatar, led by independent magistrates, was opened on January 20th this year by the PNF following its preliminary probe.
On March 5th, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), to which Platini in 2018 had taken an ultimate appeal against the disciplinary action initiated by FIFA over the 2011 payment of 2 million Swiss francs, rejected his case, which argued his rights had been abused. "The court found in particular that, having regard to the seriousness of the misconduct, the senior position held by Mr Platini in football's governing bodies and the need to restore the reputation of the sport and of FIFA, the sanction did not appear excessive or arbitrary," the ECHR said in a statement. In their ruling, the seven-member panel of judges concluded: “This complaint is manifestly ill-founded and must be rejected.”
Despite earlier assurances that Platini was not the target of their investigations into the 2011 payment, last month Swiss federal prosecutors announced he was now implicated in their probe. “The criminal proceedings have been extended against former UEFA president Michel Platini on suspicion of participation in disloyal management and on suspicion of falsification of documents,” the Swiss attorney general’s office told Reuters, while noting that until a case is brought to court and tried the presumption of innocence applied.
Platini has now changed his legal counsel, and in the place of William Bourdon he has chosen to be represented by veteran French criminal code lawyer Henri Leclerc and his partner Frédérique Baulieu.
Michel Platini did not respond to Mediapart’s request, submitted to both his spokesperson, Jean-Christophe Alquier, and his new legal team, for an interview.
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- The original French version of this report can be found here.
English version by Graham Tearse