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Michel Platini beats Johansson in vote for UEFA presidency

French soccer legend Michel Platini won the vote for the presidency of UEFA yesterday ousting long-time incumbent Lennart Johansson of Sweden with a call for reform.

The 51-year-old former national team captain and coach won a secret-ballot vote of the 52 UEFA member associations by 27-23 and will head European soccer's governing body for at least the next four years.

"I am very emotionally moved but so happy," said Platini after the vote result had been announced. "When I was a footballer after a victory we got the cup and did a lap of honor with our team-mates."

`Great Triumph'

"Today it's a great triumph for me, but I won't be doing any lap of honor. I am just happy to be representing European football. It is the start of a great adventure," he added.

The campaign for the UEFA top job had turned increasingly bitter with the 77-year-old Johansson, president since 1990, campaigning as the candidate of continuity and the challenger Platini advocating reform.

The Frenchman has notably said he was in favor of limiting Europe's big guns like Spain, Italy and England to just three teams in the prestigious Champions League instead of the current four as a way of boosting representation from smaller countries.

He won support from Sepp Blatter, the president of world governing body FIFA, and an old rival of Johansson, but Germany's influential Franz Beckenbauer came out strongly in favor of the Swede.

Beckenbauer conceded after the vote: "We have to respect the result of the vote. We [Germans] made our choice widely known, but life goes on."

"We hope to work constructively with Michel Platini," he added.

Platini is widely revered in France and throughout Europe playing 72 times for his country, 50 as captain, and scoring a national record which still stands of 41 goals.

He notably captained the side that won the 1984 European title on home soil and played in three World Cups, reaching the semi-finals twice in 1982 and 1986. In club soccer he starred for St Etienne in France and Italian giants Juventus.

He then went on to become national team manager from 1988 to 1992 before acting as co-president of the 1998 World Cup organizing committee and sitting on the UEFA and FIFA executive committees.

Sixth president

Platini will be the sixth president of the Geneva-based UEFA which was established in 1954 and the second Frenchman after Jacques Georges (1984-1990) to occupy the post.

For Johansson, the vote will be a massive blow for an official who oversaw huge developments in European soccer during his 16 years at the top, but who had been criticized for losing touch with the grass roots of the sport.

The Swede was given a standing ovation by the UEFA members and named as an honorary president of the organization, but he had some angry words to say against Blatter, against whom he lost the FIFA presidency in 1998.
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