It's Michel Platini's Birthday

- replace Michael Zen-Ruffinen as FIFA General Secretary - replace Lennert Johanssen as UEFA President

I can't remember which; both are a Bad Things.

FRA - BRA 1:1 (1:1, 1:1, 1:1) p 4-3

(+65000) Igna ROM, Christov CZE, Nemeth HUN

FRA: Bats - Battiston, Amoros, Bossis, Tusseau - Giresse (84 Ferreri), Tigana, Platini (c), Fernandez - Stopyra, Rocheteau (101 Bellone)

BRA: Carlos - Josimar, Julio Cesar, Edinho (c), Branco - Alemão, Socrates, Junior (91 Silas), Elzo - Müller (72 Zico), Careca

0:1 Careca 18, 1:1 Platini 42 (75 Bats saved a penalty by Zico)

Penalties: (0:0) Socrates (save Bats), 1:0 Stopyra, 1:1 Alemão, 2:1 Amoros, 2:2 Zico, 3:2 Bellone, 3:3 Branco, (3:3) Platini (out), (3:3) Julio Cesar (out), 4:3 Fernandez

booked: Edinho (during pen shoot-out)

http://www.fifa.com/en/history/centennial/index/0,1282,70535,00.html?articleid=70535

Always had his socks rolled down. Why didn't defenders just kick his shins?

http://football.guardian.co.uk/News_Story/0,,2218096,00.html

http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2009/feb/18/michel-platini-uefa-european-parliament

It does seem miraculous, in a world of disaster, corruption and disappointment, that the footballer I revere above all others should not only become head of European football but also turn out to be, by the standards of other CEOs, corporate bigshots et al, incredibly dedicated to progressive policies.

"We've got to get a system that's better balanced," Platini added. "That's my personal philosophy and that of the Uefa board and we are going to do something … I'm in talks with the RCA chairman [Karl-Heinz Rummenigge of Bayern Munich] and he wishes to give extra revenues in solidarity to all the European clubs."

is kind of hilarious - like some Simpsons episode where Lisa is in the White House and the other kids also turn out to be in top jobs. But how about this?

"Professional football is no more a financial service than it is an agricultural activity," he said. "It is just as absurd to want to regulate football through the automatic application of competition law as it would be to do so through the Common Agricultural Policy.

"We must not delude ourselves, for even huge clubs like Manchester United or Real Madrid are financial dwarves compared with Microsoft or Exxon. The turnover of most European first division clubs is smaller than that of their city's largest supermarket.

"We now know that none of this is true: that in football as in the economy in general, the market is incapable of correcting its own excesses, and it was not the Uefa president who said so, it was Barack Obama."

aaah, he was so great and a hero when I was child (france-brasil 86 being of course an amazing, although blurred now, moment for the 10 y.o french boy I was....).
that said, he's clearly below Zidane for the 32 y.o I'm now (and it's the case for most people in france...).

not sure that spending caps tied to a percentage of revenue like this are "progressive" so much as an attack on the nouveau riche by the establishment.

an absolute spending cap, set fairly low, would be a different matter.

There may be a lot of particular criticisms to be made of the policies - which come from a wealthy corporate body after all. Probably you understand these issues better than I do (I don't understand them at all, in detail). But I am consistently struck by how Platini's rhetoric as an administrator seems egalitarian (maybe romantic too - sport should be sport, not finance, that kind of thing) to a degree that seems unusual in a figure in his position.

AlexTC, I love Zidane's great achievements for your national side (as one or two people who've posted here could attest), but you've already supplied the reason, really, why Platini will always be mon favori. I watched that quarter-final, as a child, in a corner at a party full of drinking adults who had half an eye on it; it long ago officially went down as my all-time favourite game of football.

i totally misread the title. i thought it said "Mike Palin's Birthday." my bad!

It's Michel Platini's birthday - and tonight, on the longest day of the year, it's also 23 years since France 1-1 Brazil.

Merci Michel.

and merci for this charming thread, the pinefox