Has Europe given up on FIFA? The question is raised by what seems to have been a particularly productive month for Michel Platini, President of UEFA, the European football body.

It started on September 19 in Geneva, with the announcement of the 13 cities, from Dublin to Baku, which will host matches in the revolutionary Euro 2020 tournament, whose format now seems to chime so well with the prevailing anti-extravagance, down-with-white-elephants zeitgeist.

It will end this week, with the former French midfield general talking Financial Fair Play (FFP) in Rome with European Union (EU) Sports Ministers.

In the interim, Platini has signed what may turn out to be a landmark document, called an "Arrangement for Cooperation", with the European Commission (EC), the EU's executive arm. Oh and he has a book out.

The impression beginning to build is that UEFA has been accepted by a body representing some of the richest and most powerful nations on earth as a responsible administrator and that Platini is a man they think they can do business with.

Two initial observations:

1. What a difference from a few years ago. When, in 2001, I covered the dénouement of the EC's attempts to force changes to the transfer system, the battle-lines were very much Brussels against FIFA/UEFA.

In one report, I wrote that a senior UEFA figure had said the body had found EC officials "almost impossible to deal with" on one issue - this in a letter to the then Swedish Prime Minister.

2. The tone and thrust of the new document, which was also signed by Androulla Vassiliou, Commissioner for Education, Culture, Multilingualism and Youth, seems very much in line with the direction in which sport's longstanding claims for the right to administer its own affairs appears to be moving.

International Olympic Committee (IOC) President Thomas Bach spelt out the position that sport seems to be falling into line with in 2009 in a keynote speech to the Olympic Congress.

"Sport must keep and protect its freedom in its relations with the political sphere and have the freedom to take decisions in self-determination and autonomy," Bach said, while also emphasising: "This does not entail creating a legislative vacuum or a parallel world, but simply the possibility for sport to regulate its own, sport-specific affairs under its own responsibility and in accordance with general laws."

The respect of partners is, moreover, he argued, indispensable for the autonomy of sport.

"We earn this respect through responsibility and reliability, by using our autonomy responsibly and acting reliably...

"Sport is completely dependent on its credibility, ie on the credibility of sports competitions and on the credibility and reputation of sports organisations."

UEFA President Michel Platini has made it clear that he no longer supports his Sepp Blatter as head of FIFA ©Getty Images

Could it be then that the EU and UEFA, in a new-found spirit of mutual respect and despairing of the prospect of dislodging FIFA President Sepp Blatter or precipitating meaningful reform in Zurich, have determined, consciously or not, to try and cut FIFA out of key decisions affecting what is far and away the richest and most culturally significant sport in Europe?

We know because of what he told L'Equipe in June that Platini - who has always struck me as quite an impulsive man if also clearly capable of strategic thought - has lost patience with his erstwhile ally.

"I supported him in 1998, but I do not support him in 2014," he told the French sports paper. "And in the future I will not support Mr Blatter."

He also confides, in one of the interviews that make up the new book, "Let's Talk Football", that, "I have done nothing since becoming UEFA President but undertake a rapprochement with the European Commission."

We shall just have to watch what happens in coming months, particularly in two 'hot' areas where their new "arrangement" has enabled UEFA and Brussels to stake out what amounts to a common position.

First, on the transfer regime, the document authorises UEFA to "play a prominent role in seeking appropriate solutions on issues pertaining to players' transfers and agents at European level".

This is interesting because FIFA has decided that a new regulatory system is to take effect from next April.

This will do away with one of football's totemic bogeymen, the licensed agent, but, while FIFA talks about a simpler more transparent system resulting in better enforcement at national level, some other people are predicting chaos.

How will UEFA react next summer if the new regime appears not to be working?

The other area to watch is third-party ownership (TPO).

FIFA is now committed to banning this after a transitional period, but the EC/UEFA document talks rather of the importance of ensuring that TPO does not "threaten the integrity of sporting competition" - a big difference, especially when it is clear that some influential Europe-based interests will fight to keep it, at least in watered-down form.

Transfers and TPO are both issues where UEFA appears well-placed, should it so choose, to make its presence felt, since the vast majority of the world's best footballers aspire to play in Europe or already have European employers.

If one reduces football for a moment to a trial of strength between its two most powerful regulatory bodies (not that it has yet come to that), the balance of forces looks something like this.

UEFA has on its territory both the cream of world football's workforce and all of the wealthiest and most influential clubs.

The success of the Champions League, won this year by Spain's Real Madrid, ensures that Europe need not rely on the World Cup to be financially successful ©Getty Images

The European regulator also possesses the basis for an inherently more stable financial model than FIFA: this is because its annual club competitions, notably the Champions League, mean it is not reliant on one outstandingly opulent golden egg laid once every four years.

UEFA also has a boot in the world governing body's camp, in the shape of eight of the 24 full members of the ruling Executive Committee.

Plus, it has the voting power, if it maintains a rigorously united front, to block proposed changes to FIFA's statutes.

The European side's biggest potential fault-line is that Platini, with his "man of the people" instincts, is not by and large, in my judgement, the favourite administrator of the richest, most powerful clubs.

And if the surprisingly smooth implementation to date of FFP has won him credibility with politicians, it seems unlikely to have endeared him to some of those who see football first and foremost as a money-making vehicle.

Also, let's face it, the Frenchman shares responsibility for one of FIFA's most controversial recent decisions since, as he acknowledges, he was among those who voted for Qatar to host the 2022 World Cup.

FIFA's great strength is its control of the world's most fabled single-sport competition - a tournament from which no player in his prime would want to be excluded and no fan would wish to see devalued.

If things got really nasty, then Blatter's political guile, still remarkably undimmed in this the veteran phase of his administrative career, and the esteem in which he is held in other continents, especially Africa, mean that his European tormentors could probably be portrayed with some success as selfish rich men trying to gobble yet more of football's money-cake.

As host of the next World Cup, moreover, Vladimir Putin's Russia has a very powerful incentive to remain on good terms with FIFA, probably making it impossible for Platini to command an entirely united front in Europe.

Has Europe given up on FIFA? Impossible for now to say, but it is a beguiling question and one we may be closer to getting an answer to by the time Blatter stands, once again, for re-election in May.

David Owen worked for 20 years for the Financial Times in the United States, Canada, France and the UK. He ended his FT career as sports editor after the 2006 World Cup and is now freelancing, including covering the 2008 Beijing Olympics, the 2010 World Cup and London 2012. Owen's Twitter feed can be accessed here.