The governance of global soccer, and not just of European, shifted significantly in Düsseldorf on Friday when Michel Platini and Franz Beckenbauer — former great players — were elected to powerful positions in the sport's hierarchy.
Platini became president of UEFA, the union of 53 European national soccer federations, and automatically a vice president of the world body FIFA. One hour later, Beckenbauer was voted onto the FIFA executive.
By the end of the day, Sepp Blatter, who as FIFA president is supreme in soccer's power game, announced that he was heading to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, where he will address heads of state at the African Union Summit on Monday. Blatter had flown to Düsseldorf to intervene decisively in UEFA's presidential election. He had no vote, but he spoke for Platini, whom he had groomed in sporting administration, at the expense of Lennart Johansson, who as UEFA leader for 17 years was among the few men to question Blatter's autocratic style.
"Mr. Blatter's intervention may have won me votes," conceded Platini, "but I am sure it also made me lose votes. We have known each other long. What was he going to say — that I am the enemy?"
The secret ballot was won by the former French player against the retired Swedish businessman, 27 to 23, with two votes invalid.
(UEFA admitted Montenegro, which split from Serbia last year, as its 53rd nation on Friday.)
There were three main differences in approach:
Johansson is 77, and having failed to prepare a successor stood for a new four-year term. Platini, 51, has comparative freshness and a yearning to lead in office as once he so brilliantly led on the field.
Johansson asked the nations to approve the status quo. Platini offered smaller countries, especially East European, the promise that he would cut back the number of clubs from England, Spain, Italy and Germany to allow champions from less wealthy lands to participate in the UEFA Champions League.
Johansson lives in Stockholm and delegated the day-to-day business operation to the professional staff at Nyon, which is near the Swiss city of Geneva. Platini will move with his wife from Paris to Geneva so that he can run the administration 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, in the executive style that Blatter runs FIFA in Zurich.
The delegates in Düsseldorf, where UEFA's congress took place, were waiting late Friday for the anticipated resignation of Lars-Christer Olsson, the diligent chief executive.
The appointment of Beckenbauer as a UEFA representative on FIFA's executive committee will not have been as much to Blatter's liking. Their personalities, not to say egos, clashed during the run in to the World Cup in Germany last summer.
Platini acknowledged that "the establishment was voting for Johansson," by which he meant the senior nations of soccer.
"But I counted on many friends to help me. This is a great victory, but I am not going to do a lap of honor because now the work starts."
(During Platini's playing days, he took a victory lap when he led France to the 1984 European Championship.)
He asked the congress to elect Johansson as honorary president of UEFA and, as it did so to ringing applause, Platini said: "Lennart, this is for you. I will need you. We have to work together."
The presentation was pure Blatter. Beat the opponent, then offer him a road paved with flowers.
Blatter and Johansson, meanwhile, were anything but complimentary.
Blatter had abandoned protocol by entering the UEFA chamber to declare his debt and affection for Platini — who loaned his playing glory to Blatter's own FIFA presidential campaign, against Johansson in Paris in 1998.
Furthermore, Blatter accompanied his protégé to Moscow last week where Platini canvassed for votes and Blatter, 71 years old, reiterated that Johansson was old for a man seeking a fresh term of office.
The Swede is slow to rile, but he did sting Blatter in front of congress on Friday.
Blatter "asked me to stay on as UEFA president and then came out for the other party," Johansson said.
"I think he's wheeling and dealing, going right and then left, having one opinion on Monday and another on Tuesday. I don't follow his ways, I don't get it."
While Platini observed that this had been "an excellent intervention from Mr. Blatter," many in congress nodded and remembered that now, as in 1998, Johansson had believed the promise of votes in his favor and been counted out in the ballot.
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