Michel Platini, the former Uefa president, has claimed “a little trickery” was used in the 1998 World Cup draw to increase the chances of France and Brazil meeting in the final.
Platini is serving a four-year ban from involvement in football – reduced twice from an original eight-year sanction – after he was found guilty of receiving an “underhand payment” from the then-Fifa president Sepp Blatter.
The former France and Juventus playmaker was co-president of the World Cup organising committee in 1998, and admitted the group allocations for seeded teams were made with an eye on a “dream” final.
Brazil were placed in Group A, as was the standard practice at the time for the defending champions. France, the hosts, were then allocated to Group C – meaning if both seeded teams won their groups they could not meet before the final.
That was how it turned out, with France beating Paraguay, Italy and Croatia before overcoming Brazil 3-0 at the Stade de France with two goals from Zinedine Zidane.
“France-Brazil in the final, it was the dream of everyone,” Platini told the radio station France Bleu Sport, in an interview to be broadcast in full on Sunday.
The 62-year-old was laughing as he said: “There was a little trickery. We did not spend six years organising the World Cup to not do some little shenanigans. Do you think other World Cup hosts did not?”
While teams had been allocated to specific groups at previous tournaments, it had typically been to keep countries from the same confederation separate.
At Italia 90, the six top seeds were assigned to groups A to F in order, while England were placed in the “London group” at both the 1966 World Cup and Euro 96. In both tournaments, this resulted in the hosts playing all their games at Wembley.