Platini continues drive for presidency at Moscow meeting

PARIS, Jan 18 (Reuters) Michel Platini, who is running for the UEFA presidency against the incumbent Lennart Johansson, will attend a meeting of Eastern European countries organised by the Russian FA in Moscow on Saturday.

''Michel will be travelling to Moscow for this meeting as he has done for the past three or four years,'' his representative Francois Manardo told Reuters today.

''It will be an opportunity to meet the presidents of several UEFA associations less than a week before the election,'' Francois Manardo added.

The election will take place in Duesseldorf, Germany at the UEFA Congress next Friday, January. 26.

French soccer great Platini, a member of both the UEFA and the FIFA executive committees, will attend the meeting with FIFA president Sepp Blatter although they will not travel to Russia together, Manardo added.

UEFA president Lennart Johansson has also been invited to the meeting, but a spokesman said on his behalf: ''He has met all the presidents involved in recent times will not be in Moscow.

He is presently with UEFA colleagues preparing for next week's Congress.'' REUTERS SAM RK1734