UEFA President Čeferin said he does not intend to be elected for a fourth time

The Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) congress took place in Paris on Thursday. The key item on the agenda was the approval of a kind of reset of the terms of UEFA President Aleksandar Čeferin. Supporters of this option believed that the first term served by a Slovenian lawyer was incomplete and therefore did not count. Congress voted overwhelmingly to give Ceferin a fourth term in 2027. But after this, the UEFA president himself stated that he did not intend to nominate his candidacy at all.

Thursday in Paris passed next UEFA congress. In the agenda proposed to the meeting delegates, in addition to routine issues, under the modest number 13, there was an item on amending the UEFA statute. The discussion was about adjusting the previously introduced restriction, according to which no one can hold the post of UEFA president for more than three four-year terms. The essence of the adjustment was to not count the first term of the current President Aleksandar Čeferin.

President of UEFA Mr. Ceferin became in September 2016 (re-elected in 2019 and 2023). This happened after Michel Platini, who was elected for another term in 2015, was forced to resign.

The logic of the initiators of the amendments to the UEFA regulations was that since Aleksandar Čeferin did not serve his first full presidential term (2015–2019), then he cannot be counted.

It is noteworthy that it was Alexander Čeferin who came up with the initiative to limit the terms (previously there was no such limit). In 2017, a year after being elected UEFA president, he said his proposed rule “is essential to restoring UEFA’s image, restoring trust in the structure and preserving its legacy.”

Until 2016, Slovenian lawyer Aleksandar Čeferin could not even dream of such a successful career. Since 2011, he has been the head of the modest Football Federation of Slovenia, while simultaneously working as deputy chairman of the UEFA Legal Committee. However, in 2015, both UEFA and the International Football Federation (FIFA) faced a serious crisis caused by a corruption scandal. Its main result was the early resignations and subsequent long-term disqualifications of the presidents of FIFA and UEFA – Sepp Blatter and Michel Platini. As a result, the heads of the federations that are members of UEFA agreed to elect a neutral candidate as the head of the structure, who is not backed by a powerful national structure.

However, in the spring of 2021, Aleksandar Čeferin emerged as a strong leader. Then twelve European giant clubs – English Liverpool, Manchester United, Manchester City, Arsenal, Chelsea and Tottenham, Spanish Real Madrid, Barcelona and Atlético Madrid, Italian Juventus “, “Inter” and “Milan” – spoke founders of the Super League, a tournament not controlled by UEFA, aimed at depriving the union of a key source of income – proceeds from the Champions League. Mr. Čeferin handled the crisis situation brilliantly. Super League did not exist and two days.

Plus, under Mr. Čeferin, UEFA successfully held the 2020 European Championship, which was difficult due to pandemic restrictions, and, in addition, maintained financial stability in terms of prize money for participants in the competitions it held.

On Wednesday, UEFA announced that next season’s Champions League participants will receive a total of €2.46 billion, roughly in line with recent years. It is not surprising that the idea of ​​keeping Mr. Čeferin as UEFA President for as long as possible was supported by almost all national federations. Actually, during the voting at the congress, out of more than fifty who voted, there was only one national association – the English one.

This would most likely have been the end of it, if at the press conference that followed the congress meeting, Alexander Čeferin had not suddenly renounced the most important career victory he had just achieved. He stated, which will not go to a new term in 2027. During the press conference, the UEFA President made a number of other statements indicating that there is no apparent unity in the leadership of European football. He referred to a letter from a European football official to other heads of national federations, which contained “narcissistic, pathetic whining about morality.” “It was interesting for me to watch this hysteria,” said Mr. Čeferin, adding that he had long ago decided not to seek a new term. He also noted that he just wanted to “look some people in the face.” Mr. Čeferin did not explain who he actually meant.

“I’m tired of the coronavirus, the Super League story, the accusations that I’m pursuing personal ambitions. “I miss my family, who haven’t seen me for years,” said the UEFA president before leaving the press conference prematurely.

This is not the first time that the UEFA President has shown himself to be touchy, inappropriate for the level of his position, mixing personal and business relationships. Thus, in 2021, shortly after the resolution of the acute phase of the crisis caused by the creation of the Super League, Aleksandr Čeferin, in an interview with the Slovenian portal 24ur.com, called Juventus President Andrea Agnelli (at that time the key initiator of the Super League, along with Real Madrid President Florentino Perez) “ snake,” despite the fact that Messrs. Čeferin and Agnelli have an almost family relationship. The UEFA President is the godfather of Andrea Agnelli’s daughter. Mr. Čeferin then called all the other participants in the Super League “liars.” Aleksandar Čeferin’s experiences, as he said, were so deep that he even drank double whiskey to fall asleep at night. And from this whole story he learned some extraordinary lessons. First, money doesn’t solve everything, second, even the closest people can be liars. Mr. Ceferin spoke separately about Mr. Peres. He called him the “president of nothing”, meaning that the Super League is “nothing”.

In fact, however, the Super League has every chance to achieve its goal. Despite the repressive measures taken by UEFA, the Super League is not dead. Among its founders were Real Madrid and Barcelona. The company they founded, A22, protested UEFA’s actions in the European Court and achieved a recognition that “FIFA and UEFA rules requiring their consent to host international tournaments such as the Super League and banning clubs from participating in such tournaments are illegal.” The court also agreed with the plaintiffs that the governing football structures abuse their dominant position by “imposing unreasonable restrictions.” The court noted that holding football competitions has a completely commercial rationale, for example in the form of the implementation of commercial rights, which means that this case falls under laws protecting competition. The Court considered that it was detrimental to European clubs in general that FIFA and UEFA had exclusive control over the implementation of commercial rights, which “harm[ed]clubs, interested companies, consumers and spectators by limiting their right to enjoy new, potentially innovative or interesting tournaments.”

In fact, the European Court stripped off all legal obstacles to the creation of the Super League. A22 CEO Bernd Reichart claims that the opening Super League tournament, in which, according to Mr. Reichart, two dozen European clubs are discussing participation, will take place as early as 2025. By 2027, he may well have gained such strength that Aleksandar Čeferin will really no longer make sense to remain the head of UEFA.

Alexander Petrov