Platini was, along with Fernand Sastre, head of the organizing committee for the 1998 FIFA World Cup, held in France. He served on the UEFA Technical Development Committee from 1988 to 1990. He has been a member of the UEFA Executive Committee and European member of the FIFA Executive Committee since 2002. He continued to climb the ranks of UEFA and FIFA football administration and as of 2006, he is a chairman of the FIFA Technical and Development Committee, while also being vice-president of the French Football Federation.

UEFA Presidency
Platini confirmed that he would run for the UEFA presidency in July 2006. In the election in Düsseldorf on 26 January 2007, he defeated Lennart Johansson, who held the post for the previous 16 years, by 27 votes to 23. Michel Platini based his speech on virtues of solidarity and universality.



Platini has recently backed the 6+5 idea, six home international players and five foreign players, to be introduced in top flight teams in Europe. Platini has also backed caps on wages, transfer spending – both absolute and as a fraction of club turnover – and foreign ownership of clubs. He has stated that he wants to reduce the number of Italian, Spanish, and English teams that participate in the UEFA Champions League to a maximum of three instead of four. This hasn't happened yet, but instead for the 2009–10 season, a different routes were created for champions of smaller countries and non-champions of bigger countries. He has also talked about banning clubs from the competition based on the debts of the clubs. Among his more contentious claims is that international transfer of players under 18 is in fact a form of illegal "child trafficking" and should be prohibited by the EU. "Paying a child to kick a ball is not that different from paying a child to work in a factory," said Platini to members of the EU on 18 February 2009.

He has been often accused of an anti-English bias by the English tabloid press. One of these occurrences was when Manchester City bid 100 Million pounds for Kaká and Platini called the bid "ridiculous".