Michel Platini has accused Sepp Blatter of making him "his last scalp" as Fifa president in the affair which saw both banned from football.
Platini was Uefa president until December 2015 when he was banned from football for an initial eight years by Fifa’s ethics committee due to a €1.85 million payment made to him on the instruction of Blatter, who suffered the same fate.
Both men had their bans reduced to six years and Platini’s was later cut to four by the Court of Arbitration for Sport (Cas) but it was enough to prevent him attending Euro 2016 in his native France.
And regarding his former friend Blatter, Platini claimed in French newspaper Le Monde: “In the end, he tried to save his own skin.
“Blatter does not defend anyone else, he never defended me. He’s the most selfish person I have seen in my life.”
Platini traces the breakdown in the pair’s relationship to May 2015’s Fifa presidential election.
After seven Fifa officials were arrested on the eve of Blatter winning a fifth term as president, Platini announced “enough is enough” and threatened that Uefa nations could boycott the World Cup.
Blatter resigned within a week of the election as pressure continued to mount and Platini announced his intention to stand as a candidate to succeed him, before being banned along with Blatter once the payment was reported.
“He always said I would be his last scalp,” Platini claimed.
“I know he was fixated on me, to the end, ever since the ‘enough is enough’ comment on May 28, 2015, even without considering the jealousy he had for the footballer I was.”
Blatter appealed unsuccessfully last August to Cas to have his six-year ban reduced, with the Cas panel describing his conduct as “reckless, or at least profoundly careless” and his ban as “reasonable and fair”.
Platini said: “I saw him the last time at Cas in August 2016. It was as if nothing had happened on his side, he was making jokes.”
