PARIS (Reuters) - Former European soccer chief Michel Platini has filed a complaint seeking to find out how Swiss judicial authorities learned of a two million Swiss franc ($2.01 million) payment from FIFA which resulted in his ban for ethics violations, his lawyer said.
The Frenchman was banned from all soccer-related activities over the payment that FIFA made to him in 2011, with former chief Sepp Blatter's approval, for work done a decade earlier.
Platini announced in May that he had been cleared by Swiss authorities of any criminal wrongdoing and wants to return to the game.
"Now that the criminal investigation has run its course, now that he's been cleared of any wrongdoing, we're looking to find out who was responsible, who had an interest in this, so that he can seek redress," Platini's lawyer Bertrand Repolt told Reuters.
The former striker for the French national team has filed the legal complaint with the Paris prosecutor's office against unknown persons alleging slander and conspiracy to commit slander.
Platini was banned in December, 2015, from all soccer-related activities for eight years. Six month's later, the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) reduced the suspension to four years.
The ban rules Platini out of running for the FIFA presidency in 2019.
($1 = 0.9927 Swiss francs)
(Reporting by Emmanuel Jarry; writing by Richard Lough; Editing by Toby Davis)