UEFA will hold an election in September to choose a replacement for its banned president Michel Platini, European soccer's governing body said 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. Spanish football federation president Angel Maria Villar will award the Euro 2016 trophy to the tournament winners in the absence of Michel Platini, UEFA announced Wednesday. 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 ($2.08 million) 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. Norwegian is Infantino's strategic director FIFA has hired Norwegian soccer federation official Kjetil Siem as President Gianni Infantino's director of strategic matters. The role is a new one overseeing the soccer body's structure in Zurich, FIFA said Wednesday. Siem has begun work at FIFA ahead of the arrival in June of secretary general Fatma Samoura, a United Nations official from Senegal who has never before worked in soccer. For the past four years, Siem was secretary general at the Norwegian federation while Infantino had the same position at UEFA. Siem is credited in Norway with creating the "Handshake for Peace" project with the Nobel Peace Center, which was later adopted by then-FIFA president Sepp Blatter. The Nobel organization suspended ties with FIFA last year after American and Swiss federal prosecutors revealed sprawling investigations of corruption implicating senior soccer officials. Siem, a 55-year-old former journalist also worked as CEO of the Premier Soccer League in South Africa from 2007-10.
