UEFA's former chief executive has poured cold water on claims that full details of Michel Platini's FIFA contract during the late 1990s had been known by the leaders of the European governing body.
Platini is facing a lengthy ban from FIFA's ethics committee over a 2million Swiss franc payment (£1.3million) he received in 2011 from FIFA - signed off by FIFA president Sepp Blatter, who is also facing ethics charges. Platini insists the money was part of a verbal agreement he made with Blatter 13 years previously.
Platini's lawyers now say a memo published in a French newspaper on Sunday could help clear the suspended UEFA president. The memo, apparently distributed to some members of UEFA's executive committee in 1998 in the form of an intelligence report, states "we hear about a salary of one million Swiss francs" for Platini to take on a role with FIFA.
Gerhard Aigner, who retired from UEFA in 2003, however told German news agency SID: "I can't imagine that there was such a document. Platini was not a member of the UEFA executive committee at the time.
"We knew that he supported Blatter and it was clear to everybody that he would not have done that for free. But we didn't even know what salary the FIFA president Blatter, who was elected over our UEFA president Lennart Johansson, was on - why should we have taken any interest in what Platini was being paid?
"I cannot remember there being such a document, but it cannot be ruled out after all this time. If Platini/Blatter had been a subject of discussion, then it would have had to be in the minutes of the meeting."
It is known that Platini did have a written contract for 300,000 Swiss francs (£203,465) a year and was paid just over 1million Swiss francs over three and a half years until he stepped down as Blatter's technical advisor in 2002.
Platini's lawyers are arguing the UEFA memo points to there being wider knowledge that his actual salary was 1million Swiss francs a year.
The Court of Arbitration for Sport is expected to announce on Tuesday its ruling on appeals by Platini and Blatter against provisional 90-day bans from football-related activities. The ban is preventing Platini from doing any campaigning for the FIFA presidential election in February.
The adjudicatory chamber of FIFA's ethics committee is due to hear the cases between December 16 to 18 with a decision announced before Christmas.
Source: PA
