Platini might go fishing but not while FIFA still beckons

By Mike Collett VIENNA (Reuters) - It is not easy imagining Michel Platini with his rod and line fishing by a riverbank or playing rugby but the soon-to-be 60-year-old UEFA chief is keeping his options open. Nobody close to Platini, acclaimed as the president of European soccer's governing body for a third term at Tuesday's Congress, expects either of those things to happen of course. But the former France manager and captain, albeit with his tongue in his cheek, was not ruling them out. Reflecting on the immediate past as well as the future with a select group of football writers after the Congress, he was asked about the future for himself, UEFA and world governing body FIFA when his new term ends in four years' time. By then Platini will be 64 while Sepp Blatter will be 83, and perhaps ready to relinquish the FIFA presidential reigns if, as expected, he is re-elected for a fifth term in May. "It is impossible for me to say," Platini said of his future path. "I will go where I want to go. "I don't know if I want to stay with UEFA, I don't know if I want to go for FIFA, I don't know if I want to go and see another part of the world. "I will be 64 then, and it will be my last decision. BEST CONGRESS "I might want to go and fish, I might want to play rugby -- I might feel like doing that -- I don't know what I will do in four years' time, but I don't feel at any crossroads now. "I think we have just had the best Congress since I became president. We are living in our times. I am very happy to be re-elected and I feel as though we have a lot of very important work to do." The underlying message was clear -- Platini will wait to see how things develop by 2019 to decide if he will seek the FIFA presidency, something many observers believed he would do this year before he announced last August he was remaining with UEFA. A key factor will be what happens at the FIFA presidential election on May 29 when Luis Figo of Portugal, Michael van Praag of the Netherlands and Prince Ali Bin Al Hussein of Jordan all stand against Swiss Blatter, the overwhelming favourite to win. That will go some way to forming what Platini does in four years' time, although even he surely cannot imagine he will be fishing -- or playing rugby. "I've always liked the game," he said. "You never know." (Reporting by Mike Collett; Editing by Ken Ferris)