By Andrew Warshaw
March 12 – A proposal to give smaller European nations more of a say in key decisions affecting the running of the game has failed to materialise following the intervention of Germany, UEFA’s biggest individual federation.
Insideworldfootball has learned that the Germans were behind a move to block a UEFA-backed amendment that was on the agenda at last week’s UEFA Congress which, if passed, would have prevented single associations from being represented on both the UEFA executive committee and the FIFA Council at the same time.
Although UEFA president Aleksander Ceferin did not provide details of the amendment before it was withdrawn, it is understood Romania was the federation that made the request for greater representation on the two bodies from among UEFA’s 55 members.
It is also believed that Ceferin, who came to power three and a half years ago banging the drum for less advantaged European federations, would have supported the amendment, only for the idea to be scuppered and the status quo retained when it was withdrawn for further discussion.
“What UEFA wanted was to have more federations represented but the Germans – supported by the other big countries – took the view that the larger associations should not be prevented from being on both bodies, whether with the same person or someone else,” said one high-ranking European official who supported the German stance.
“If the Romanian amendment had passed, it would have been impossible to be a member of both the UEFA executive committee and the FIFA Council.”
“All the big countries like Germany, Spain, England and Italy need to be on the UEFA exco. But they didn’t want a situation where they couldn’t be on the FIFA Council at the same time. As things stand now there are no restrictions and it’s important that principle remains.”
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