Uefa to elect Michel Platini’s replacement in September

Uefa will hold an election in September to choose a replacement for its banned president Michel Platini, European soccer's governing body said on Wednesday.

Uefa’s executive committee decided to hold the election at a special Congress in Athens, acting general secretary general Theodore Theodoridis told reporters.

The decision means that Uefa will not have a president during its showpiece European championship in France in June and July.

Platini, a former French international regarded as one of the finest players of his generation, was one of the sport’s most powerful figures until he was engulfed by the soccer scandal which has plagued sport’s governing body Fifa.

The 60-year-old was banished along with former Fifa president Sepp Blatter over a payment of two million Swiss francs (€1.84m) made to the Frenchman by Fifa with Blatter's approval in 2011 for work done a decade earlier.

Dutch FA president Michael van Praag, who last year stood for the Fifa presidency before withdrawing from the contest, was reported by local media as planning to stand in the Uefa election.