We all know of UEFA President Michel Platini, for better or worse. This man is hailed as one of the greatest football players of his time, and rightly so. He won numerous club honours and individual honours, including the prestigious "World Football Player of the Year" award. His credentials don't lie.
But football is a funny old game. Very rarely do the good times keep rolling smoothly if you're still involved in the game. We have bore witness to such things, and for me the best example was the incredible change of events for Leeds United. Once Premier League Giants, they now reside in League One.
It now looks like the tides are changing for Platini's reputation, as well. Maybe not to the extreme lengths of Leeds, but, I can safely say that many people now look at Platini in a different light.
Over the last two years, Platini has come out with some hugely controversial remarks concerning football, and, moreover...England!
Who could forget Platini's attack on English clubs for "poaching young players," and then he tried to tell the FA who to appoint as their new national coach; worst of all, though, was when he called Manchester United and Chelsea "cheats of the game," "because of their debt." What a coincidence that this comes up after the all-English final in Rome.
This brings me to the topic at hand. Platini has yet again made a set of controversial remarks involving an English club, but to be fair it was really aimed at their French manager, Arsene Wenger.
Platini was quoted saying the following during an interview:
On treating the game like a business
"Me, I only want to talk about football, [Wenger] only cares about business. We must shut up about Wenger and everything."
On Wenger's view of goal-line technology
"I would not mind [technology being used]. It would make me happy that Arsene Wenger never sees it."
On the beautiful game
"The fact that Cluj beat Roma is very interesting, don't you think? This is the beauty of the game, where small teams beat big teams, something Wenger does not like because it is not a business approach."
I first saw this news appear on the Arsenal Young Guns Web site, but did not want to believe it. I wrote this article and kept it to myself until I was sure this was the truth.
Sure enough, early this morning it was plastered all over the Web.
It is appalling that the head of UEFA would say such things, but, then again, Platini has shown many times before that he can take a very ugly approach.
For Arsene Wnger's responce to the story see Marie Ofeire's article
http://bleacherreport.com/articles/60650-arsenal-boss-arsene-wenger-hits-back-at-platini
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