Is Platini pulling the strings in FIFA race?

When Michel Platini ruled out running for the FIFA presidency last year, it seemed he had given up all hope of unseating Sepp Blatter.

The UEFA president had been seen as the only credible challenger to Blatter’s 17-year grip on the most powerful job in football and his refusal to stand appeared to make the Swiss’ re-election a mere formality.

Platini’s confederation, so vocal in its opposition to Blatter, could not even get its act together to anoint an understudy for its leader and looked as if it would be forced to endorse a non-European at the ballot in May.

However, the shock entry this week of Luis Figo and Dutch Football Association chairman Michael van Praag into the presidency race has brought to light what has really been going on at UEFA since Platini’s announcement.

It is the implementation of a radical strategy that Platini and his advisers — having seemingly deemed Blatter unbeatable in a head-to-head contest — believe may ultimately lead to the 78-year-old’s downfall.

The first phase of this plan concluded yesterday when Figo joined Van Praag and Prince Ali Hussein in declaring his intention to run for the presidency. Platini helped to ensure all three candidates received enough nominations from European federations in order to stand, which included the Football Association endorsing Prince Ali and the Scottish FA backing Van Praag.

Phase Two will see the trio begin their campaigns in earnest, each setting out their programme for the reform of FIFA in a bid to create a groundswell of support for change within a governing body plagued by corruption scandals during Blatter’s reign. The presence of so many candidates is designed to highlight just how much opposition there is to Blatter continuing as president and to demonstrate there is a genuine choice about the future direction of the game.

Phase Three involves the build-up to the election itself, when each candidate will need to decide whether to stay in the race until the ballot or withdraw and pledge their allegiance to another of those running.

The current perception of where FIFA’s 209-member association stands on the election is that Blatter already has enough guaranteed votes — particularly in Africa, Asia and South America — to win comfortably. That means anyone running against him is automatically seen as a loser by those associations who may not otherwise back Blatter.

However, were a single challenger to emerge from the beauty contest of opposition candidates that is likely to unfold during the coming months, that man may end up being perceived as a potential winner.

The one problem with this plan from Platini’s point of view is that, if it succeeds — and that is a very big if indeed — it leaves a huge question mark over his own FIFA presidency ambitions in 2019.

A Blatter victory would arguably improve his chances of succeeding the Swiss in four years’ time, providing the latter does not plan to be in charge of FIFA until he is 87. Defeat for his rival, on the other hand, could leave him facing the very man he helped install in Zurich.

However, Platini may have thought of this, too.

Van Praag confirmed on Wednesday he would stand for a single term as a reform president and it is likely Prince Ali and Figo have agreed to a similarly curtailed tenure, opening the door for Platini to take over in 2019.

Beating Blatter before then may yet prove impossible and the bookmakers will hardly be rushing to alter their odds on the strength of a completely untested strategy. However, far from throwing in the towel, Platini has helped ensure the coming months will be very interesting indeed. THE DAILY TELEGRAPH