I had dinner last night with Michel Platini, football legend and the newly elected president of Uefa. He was elected just last week to this post in a hotly fought contest in which he ousted Lennart Johansson, seemingly winning thanks to a pledge to reduce the maximum number of clubs from any given country that can compete in the Champions League.

Other than on this point, his policy line shows continuity with the previous Uefa leadership: concern about the governance of the game, corruption, doping, racism, funny money coming into certain clubs, and the dominance of a ever smaller number of rich clubs in each country – except that he seems willing to pursue the necessary reforms with more vigour.

Much of this requires cooperation from public authorities at national and European level. If Uefa is to oblige leagues to sell TV rights collectively (and redistribute the income) it requires a sympathetic interpretation of competition law. The Uefa rule limiting squad sizes and requiring a certain number of “home-grown” players also requires a sympathetic interpretation of EU employment laws and its principle of non-discrimination on the grounds of nationality. That is where the“Friends of Football” all-party group in the European Parliament can help.

(In this context, it was interesting to see Tory Eurosceptic Heaton-Harris extol the merits of EU legislation – in this case the money laundering directive – as a help to the football authorities.)

All this will help shape the debate on the forthcoming Commission white paper on sport in Europe which follows on from the Independent Review of Football, on which I served, which reported last year. Most of the ideas being evolved will be popular – except with some of the “big clubs” that currently dominate.

Platini’s own suggestion to cut the maximum number of Champions League places per country will not go down well in the Premier League but, as Platini said, if you look at the problems facing football (not least this week with the suspension of all football in Italy), the issue of whether the team coming fourth in England from 2009 onwards qualifies for the Champions League does not exactly seem to be the biggest issue.