Michel Platini tells UEFA delegates 'I have a clear conscience'
Wednesday 14 September 2016 10:19, UK
Former UEFA president Michel Platini has said he 'departs with a clear conscience' in his farewell speech to Europe's football leaders.
The 61-year-old Frenchman is currently serving a four-year ban from the game, after being found guilty of ethics violations in December 2015.
Ex-president of FIFA Sepp Blatter also left his role after breaching ethics rules over a "disloyal payment" made to Platini in 2011.
Platini, who was given special permission to address UEFA's congress on Wednesday, said: "It's very emotional for me. I've made no mistakes and will carry on to fight in the courts.
"I have a clear conscience. I am sure that I have not made any mistakes. I'll continue to fight this in the courts."
Platini, UEFA's president for eight years, spoke for 10 minutes before being given a round of applause by those delegates gathered in Athens.
In his speech, he added: "Football is a game rather than a product, a sport rather than a market, a show not a business.
"There isn't one football for large nations and one for small nations, there is a single football, a single sport, it doesn't belong to FIFA or UEFA, it belongs to the whole world.
"That is why I wanted to come today to say thank you and, friends of football, farewell."
Platini was banished along with Blatter over a payment of two million Swiss francs made to the former World and European player of the year by FIFA, and with Blatter's approval, for work done a decade earlier.
The pair have always denied any wrongdoing, saying this payment was made for consultancy work Platini had done for Blatter between 1998 and 2002. However, the ethics committee did not agree.
Platini spoke at a UEFA congress which met in Greece to elect a new president. Slovenian federation leader Aleksander Ceferin was named as Platini's replacement, with delegates voting 42-13 in his favour. The beaten candidate was Dutchman Michael van Praag.
