The case had been revealed by the Mediapart site. According to the latter, did Michel Platini receive a painting by Pablo Picasso? A “gift” to promote the vote of the former number 10 for the award of the 2018 World Cup in Russia? This Monday evening, with relatives, Michel Platini acknowledges having received not a painting but a lithograph by the Spanish painter, called “Football”. A gift from Russian oligarch Alisher Usmanov on Platini’s 61st birthday in 2016.
In 2014, the Sunday Times mentioned the information. At the time, the English press reported that Michel Platini had received a work of Picasso from a former president of the Russian Football Union. Two years later, in 2016, a preliminary investigation for corruption was carried out by the National Financial Prosecutor’s Office. According to investigators, this gift would have been offered in exchange for Platini’s vote in favor of Russia.
In custody in June 2019
Michel Platini had also been placed in police custody in June 2019 as part of this investigation. The homes of Saint-Cloud and Cassis had been searched. The lithograph in question was also found in Platini’s second home “hung on a wall in a bedroom”, according to relatives. Paradoxically, the investigators, who were looking for a painting, had not noticed the lithograph.
Presumed innocent, Michel Platini has not been indicted. “He was never questioned by the courts about this lithograph offered by Alicher Ousmanov. If Michel Platini sold his vote for Russia for a lithograph of which he does not even know the value, then it is a nozzle”, indicates a source to the newspaper L’Équipe.
