By Andrew Warshaw
August 24 – UEFA presidential candidate Alexander Ceferin has laid down the gauntlet to Europe’s major clubs by warning that any move to form a breakaway league would lead to “war” with the governing body.
Ceferin, who heads the Slovenian FA and is by far the youngest pretender to Michel Platini’s throne, is understood to have already been given more than 20 pledges of support from among UEFA’s 55 federations and is due to lobby the four British home nations in Glasgow on Thursday.
Talks involving the European Clubs Association (ECA), which holds its annual assembly the week after next, and UEFA have been going on for months about changing the Champions League format. The draw for this season’s group stage takes place on Friday and could be the last in current guise.
“One of the main issues awaiting the next UEFA president is relations with the big clubs,” Ceferin told the BBC. “My firm opinion is that some kind of closed super league with just a few clubs in, without the possibility for the others to enter, is out of the question. It will mean a kind of war between UEFA and the clubs.
“If they want more revenues we should work on it. It is possible. The Champions League is the best sports product in the world, for sure. But it doesn’t generate the most money. So we should include them [the clubs] more.”
Ceferin is vying with Michael van Praag of the Netherlands and Angel Maria Villar of Spain to succeed Platini at the ballot in Athens on 14 September.
“UEFA at this moment needs fresh blood, new ideas, new faces.,” he said. “Before, with Michel Platini, we had a charismatic leader. Now, if I come there, we will have a team leader. I think UEFA has, in principle, a good administration. We have great experts in the FAs which were not included in the decision-making. So I think that should change.”
At 45, Ceferin is very much the new kid on the block compared to both his rival contenders. But longevity, he says, does not necessarily equate to suitability. “To try to say only the one who is there for 30 years could lead UEFA? It’s quite silly. Nobody would believe that. Maybe there’s a time for a person who’s not a member of the football establishment to come.”
He also believes UEFA must do more to combat violence and discrimination than just hand out cursory fines and warnings. “UEFA doesn’t do enough. I think we should create a department within UEFA – let’s call it ‘Protection of the game’ – where we will deal with anti-doping, safety and security, fight against match-fixing and, of course, racism. We’ve seen the situation now at the Euros and obviously the security situation in Europe is not getting better, it’s getting worse every day.
“We should be pro-active, we should work on it because if a person dies, even a bigger catastrophe happens it’s a disaster for football, for UEFA, for Europe.”
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