Skip to main contentSkip to navigationSkip to navigation
Greg Dyke and Michel Platini
Greg Dyke will wait for the verdict of the Fifa investigation on Michel Platini before taking a stance on the Uefa president. Photograph: John Walton/PA
Greg Dyke will wait for the verdict of the Fifa investigation on Michel Platini before taking a stance on the Uefa president. Photograph: John Walton/PA

Greg Dyke says FA may drop Michel Platini support after investigation

This article is more than 8 years old

Uefa president is FA’s preferred option for Fifa presidency
Platini and Sepp Blatter provisionally suspended for 90 days

The Football Association chairman, Greg Dyke, has said for the first time that the governing body will drop its backing for Michel Platini if Fifa’s ethics committee finds he behaved improperly.

The Uefa president, Platini, and Fifa president, Sepp Blatter, have been handed 90-day provisional bans by the committee while investigations take place into a £1.35m payment to the Frenchman. The action leaves Platini’s hopes of running to succeed Blatter in tatters and Dyke said the FA was waiting for the outcome of the investigation – and is prepared to drop its support.

Dyke said: “If the ethics committee reaches a conclusion that Mr Platini has not behaved properly or has behaved dishonestly then of course the FA will not support him. That’s why we said in our statement that we are awaiting the results of the investigation – we need to see the evidence.

“I can see why people are saying we should stop supporting him now but we will follow what the ethics committee decides. Platini claims it’s a fix but if they decide he has behaved improperly we will not support him and I’m sure I would have the backing of the FA board on that.”

Dyke also backed calls by the IOC president, Thomas Bach, for independent candidates from outside football to be allowed to run for the Fifa presidency and said there was a need for radical reform. “We have a view of reform that is more radical than most which would certainly involve independent directors and could well involve a president from outside football,” he said. “What we do not need is Mr Blatter mark II.”

Dyke added if there was any finding of wrongdoing by the investigations into the bids for the 2018 and 2022 World Cups he was convinced there would have to be a revote. “I have no doubt if the evidence comes out that a bid was won by corruption there will have to be a revote,” he said.

Most viewed

Most viewed