YP Letters: Why Bailey Matthews is a winner - and Michel Platini unfit for high office

The courage of Doncaster's Bailey Matthews shames corrupt football chiefs like Sepp Blatter and Michel Platini.

YOUR Editorial rightly compares and contrasts the example of young cerebral palsy sufferer Bailey Matthews with Sepp Blatter and Michel Platini (“True meaning of world sport” The Yorkshire Post, December 22).

If, as seems likely, an eight year ban from football scuppers Platini’s chances of succeeding the odious Blatter as Fifa  chief, it is good news for sports lovers.

I am not one for kicking a man when he is down but I have long thought that this former great footballer was unsuitable for high office.

I recall vividly the Heysel Stadium disaster 30 years ago last May when 39 fans were  killed when a barrier collapsed before the 1985 European Cup final between Liverpool and Juventus.

For the record, Juventus won a game that should never have been played, thanks to a penalty converted and gleefully celebrated by Platini, against a Liverpool side that had little appetite for the contest.

After the game, and I paraphrase, Platini asserted that it was important that the game went ahead or the hooligans who caused the trouble would be the winners.

At best this showed bad judgment and at worst, gross insensitivity.