Michel Platini: Has the former Uefa president been arrested?

Long-serving Uefa president stepped down in 2015 when he was banned from football, but French police questioned him on Tuesday over an investigation into the 2022 World Cup

Michel Platini, the former president of Uefa and head of European football, has been detained by police in Paris.

The former France international captain was questioned on Tuesday morning in Nanterre, a western suburb of Paris, as part of the investigation into corruption surrounding how the 2022 World Cup hosting rights were awarded, a police source has confirmed.

Investigators looking into how Qatar won the right to host the next World Cup have quizzed Platini on suspicion of corruption, with the Frenchman giving his vote to the Arab state when the Fifa executive committee selected the 20018 and 2022 hosts simultaneously in 2011.

Platini was taken into the Anti-Corruption Office of the Juducial Police (OCLCIFF) on Tuesday morning for questioning, and the report also claims that Claude Gueant, who formerly advised ex-French president Nicolas Sarkozy as Secretary General, was also been taken in for questioning but has not been arrested.

Has Platini been arrested?

Initial reports in France claimed that the Frenchman was arrested on Tuesday morning, something that a police source later confirmed to the Associated Press.

But Platini’s lawyer has disputed this, and claimed that Platini was speaking to the authorities as “a witness

A statement issued by his lawyer William Bourdon read: “Michael Platini, after being heard in the same investigation in open court last year, is now questioned under the regime of custody for technical reasons.

“His counsel, Mr William Bourdon, strongly asserts that this is in no way an arrest, but a hearing as a witness in the context desired by the investigators, a framework that prevents all persons heard, then confronted, can not confer outside the procedure.

“Michel Platini expresses himself serenely and precisely, answering all the questions, including those on the conditions for the awarding of Euro 2016, and has provided useful explanations.

“He has nothing to reproach himself with and claims to be totally foreign to facts that go beyond him.

“He is absolutely confident about what’s next.”

Why was Platini banned from football?

The 63-year-old was Uefa president from January 2007 – when he replaced the late Lennart Johansson – until he stepped down in 2015 after being banned from football for six years, which was later reduced to four after appealing the sanction to the Court of Arbitration for Sport.

He was on the 1998 Fifa World Cup organising committee, and joined the Fifa executive committee in 2002 until he received his ban.

Platini and Sepp Blatter, the disgraced former Fifa president who was at helm of football’s world governing body when Russia and Qatar won their respective World Cup hosting rights, were both cleared of corruption charges in 2015, but were found guilty of a series of regulation breaches that included conflict of interest and dereliction of duty when a 2m Swiss francs (£1.35m) “disloyal payment” from Blatter to Platini in 2011 was discovered. Both were handed long bans from all football-related activities.

That ban expired in March this year, but Platini now finds himself embroiled in the corruption investigation again following his arrest.

Michel Platini has been arrested as part of an investigation into alleged corruption (AFP/Getty)

Why is the 2022 Qatar World Cup being investigated?

Qatar was controversially awarded the right to host the 2022 World Cup in 2010, which was announced at the same time as Russia winning the right to stage the 2018 tournament. In 2014, Platini admitted to holding a meeting in secret with disgraced former football official Mohamed bin Hammam days before casting his vote for Qatar, with the ex-Asian Football Confederation subsequently banned from football for life following an expose by the Sunday Times.

An investigation by The Telegraph into Platini and Bin Hammam’s relationship claimed that the pair met “between 30 and 50 times” while serving on Fifa’s executive committee.

Blatter remains banned from all football-related activities (PA)

Blatter, who originally raised to prospect of Qatar staging the World Cup in April 2010, was given an eight-year ban from all football, which was later reduced to six years on appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport. His ban expires in 2021.