You can see why the SFA would want to hop aboard the Good Ship Platini.
Without him, France and its Platini-expanded Euro 2016 wouldn’t be as attainable as we’re currently finding it.
The same goes for the Welsh FA.
All in all, he’s been pretty good for the smaller European nations.
England though? You would find it hard to detect any great love for the English game, and the English Premier league in particular, in Platini’s body of work as Uefa’s main man.
The exact opposite, infact.
From the creation of financial fair play, to the reasons for its watering down, often Platini’s policies have irritated the power brokers in English football.
You could imagine his daily routinewake up, light a cigarette, see off an espresso, then come up with an idea that will rile them across the channel.
Platini has been described not without foundation at times as the most powerful Anglophobe in sport.
Whether the reasons for backing Platini are obvious (the Scots and the Welsh FAs) or less so (the English) it is unsatisfactory to see the British governing bodies, and others across Europe, fall in line so swiftly behind the establishment candidate.
For all his talk of reform, that’s what Platini is.
Here’s an extract from an interview he gave in 2012.
“I make this clear, I will always defend Fifa and I will defend the president of Fifa. Sometimes I agree with Blatter and sometimes I don’t, but I started working with him a long time ago because he is honest. He is not corrupt. Perhaps people around Fifa are corrupted, but Blatter is honest. Perhaps you don’t like the way he makes decisions, but he is honest, 200 per cent.”
Does that sound like a man ready to help world football “turn over a new leaf” as he put it when announcing his candidature?
Platini is running for an election yet there isn’t even a manifesto. Just a few paragraphs of a press release.
There’s nothing wrong with that, of course. As with any election, he should be given time to outline his vision for world football.
But football associations should also be taking their time to assess the candidates and discuss the pros and cons of them all with their members once the deadline for nominations has passed.
Stewart Regan, Greg Dyke and Jonathan Ford would appear to be happy that there is a coronation without due diligence. Actually, without even knowing who will be on the ballot paper.
It will take more than the passing of Sepp Blatter to end the nod and a wink culture in football corridors of influence, it would appear.