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Michel Platini is free again - sports
The former head of the European Football Association was briefly in custody because of possible corruption implications for the World Cup award to Qatar.
According to a report, the French police have released former UEFA President Michel Platini, who has been suspended for all football activities, from custody. Platini had been released after several hours of interrogation on the circumstances of the awarding of the Football World Cup 2022 after Qatar, the French news agency AFP reported in the night of Wednesday. She quoted Platini's attorney William Bourdon as saying "in the end, there was a lot of noise for nothing".
According to French media, it is in the ongoing since 2016 ongoing investigation into the controversial World Cup award to Qatar bribery suspected. In Platini's case, according to the usually well-informed online platform "Mediapart", investigators are interested in its meeting in Élysée Palace on 23 November 2010 with former President Nicolas Sarkozy and today's Emir of Qatar, Tamim bin Hamad. Shortly thereafter, on 2 December 2010, the World Cup tournaments were awarded in 2018 to Russia and 2022 to Qatar.
Since then, there are massive allegations of unfair machinations to allegations of corruption against the host countries and several former FIFA officials. Platini then publicly supported Qatar.
As early as 2015, former FIFA President Joseph Blatter had spoken of an agreement on the allocation of votes and mentioned the meeting in the Élysée Palace. After that, the ratio of votes between Qatar and the US had changed in favor of the emirate.
Platini rejected the allegations on Tuesday. He had "nothing to reproach" and was not arrested, the 63-year-old told about his advisor. Platini had answered all the questions and was "absolutely confident about the rest," it said.
