Uefa's Platini backs French PM Valls in jet-to-football-match row

Uefa boss Michel Platini on Wednesday defended French Prime Minister Manuel Valls, who was still under fire for taking a government jet at the weekend to watch the Champions League final in Berlin. Platini backed Valls's claim that he attended a meeting with Uefa, although one paper says no such meeting took place and the latest revelations indicate that he was accompanied by his two sons.

French Prime Minister Manuel Valls at the Socialist Party congress in Poitiers, 5 June 2015. Reuters/Regis Duvignau

Valls hit back on Tuesday against accusations of profligacy saying sport played "a very important role, thanks to the big international events that we are going to host in France".

"The goal was not to go and support Barca, the goal was to represent France," state secretary for sports Thierry Braillard insisted.

It is true that France will host the Euro 2016 championship but Valls, who was born in Barcelona, is also known to be a big Barca fan.

President François Hollande took up the premier's defence on Monday, saying Valls was on an official trip to meet officials of European football body Uefa.

But according to this week’s edition of satirical newspaper Le Canard Enchaîné no official meeting was planned on Sunday.

“Valls chatted with Michel Platini, when they saw each other in the stands," writes the weekly.

Platini however, who was meeting Hollande on Wednesday morning, backed Valls's version.

“Last October, on the occasion of a steering committee which he was attending, I told Mr. Valls that if Barcelona was in the final of the Champions League, I would invite him to come,” Platini said during a press conference in Paris.

“The week before the final the prime minister’s office contacted my office to say that Mr Valls wanted to meet me before the game. It was clarified that he wanted to mention two things: the organisation of Euro 2016 and the Fifa crisis.”

Platini added the controversy “did not concern Uefa”.

As for the presence of his children on the plane, Valls's team argued that they in no way added to the bill, saying there were free seats on board the jet.

The explanations did not stop the opposition, conservatives and left-wingers alike, from asking Valls to reimburse the cost of the trip.

"So we learn that two of his children were on the trip to Berlin... the least Valls can do is pay it back," wrote opposition lawmaker Thierry Mariani of the Républicains party, formerly the UMP, in a tweet.