Michel Platini has been elected as the new president of UEFA in Dusseldorf after beating Lennart Johansson in the voting.

Platini, 51, defeated the Swedish incumbent Johansson, 77, by 27 votes to 23 in a poll of national Football Association presidents at the UEFA Congress.

Johansson had been in charge of European soccer's governing body since 1990.

Platini, three times former European Footballer of the Year, becomes the first high profile former player to hold such an important position in soccer administration.

He said after his victory: "I am moved, enormously moved but I am happy, it's the start of a great adventure."

Platini, who plans to cut the number of Champions League places open to the big national leagues, had used his final speech before the vote to put the emphasis on soccer's importance as a sport rather than a business.

"Football is a game before it is a product, a sport before it is a market and a show before it is a business," Platini told the Congress on Friday.

Platini also said before the vote that if successful he would propose Johansson should be appointed as honorary president to continue his work.

Platini was one of the most gifted players in the game's history. In 1984 he led France to victory at the European Championship, scoring nine goals in five games, and he was named European Footballer of the year three times.

After playing for Nancy, St Etienne and Juventus, he retired in 1987 and the following year took up his first post within UEFA, as a member of the technical development committee.

He was a co-organiser of the successful World Cup in France in 1998, the year in which he became a personal adviser to FIFA president Sepp Blatter, who in turn endorsed him in the UEFA presidential election.

Platini pledged during the campaign to limit the number of places in the Champions League to a maximum of three, even for the major powers like England, Italy and Spain.

Otherwise there was little difference between the two campaigns, with both candidates promising to intensify the fight against racism, doping, match-fixing and illegal betting.

The lack of major contention between the two meant the fight was largely a friendly one, at least until the intervention of Blatter, who gave his public support to Platini on the eve of the election in a move that infuriated Johansson.

Source

This is the most disappointing news i have heard all day, Platini is nothing but a great "poser" that will end up ruining football as we know it.

He has already said he will reduce the UEFA CL teams to 3, and he plans to remove tackling in footie what a plonker ) The fact that Blatter came out controversially to support him, shows the begining of the End, can you imagine Blatter, Platini, Hayato and other "cronies" all coming together.

What a shame, even with Johannnsen's strict nature, he still was a check mate to that clown Blatter, and now Blatter has achieved his aim of getting him out of the way, thereby making room for a sort of harmonisation between Fifa and UEFA.

This will mean a lot of things will change very soon in the "World of soccer" as Platini tries to implement some of his strange ideas into the game

Welcome to the Michel Platini Show

GOONER 89

NO SHIT?? I do not follow football politics, but if what you say is true, then kasala wan bust o!

Remove tackling in football We might as well just stop playing the game!

@loyika
how true are ur claims about platini?

JK

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/football/europe/6284365.stm

Look at some of what he stands for there, and take note of someones comments at the bottom right hand corner. Basically check every footie blog you can get, either this evening or tomorrow morn, and then come back with your findings.

If you can find anyone in the World (except for Platini's family memebers, Blatter and those that voted for him) that is happy that Platini won, please do feel free to let us know

Here already your boss and "psycho" have already started to warn the "plonker"

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/football/europe/6302803.stm

JK, another example;

http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/sport/2007/01/26/will_president_platini_trigger.html

Enjoy mate And remeber just get us one blog that is happy about him becoming UEFA President , JUST 1



GOONER 89

@loyika
i wasnt advocating for platini when i asked for links about ur claims.

If the important people in the world of football see his appointment as a step in the wrong direction, then its really a bother.

but who voted for him??

loyiks, i haven't seen any comments on the 'banning tackling'

of course he cant ban tackling. wat then are we playin? how do u then disposses an opponent. ?
u beg him for the ball?

such should occur in nigeria for the development of sport

segun odegbami as head of NFA not a bad idea or KESHI

the crazy guy has won, nw the champions league will be less interesting.