December 11 – UEFA are reported to be seeking changes to their rule book that would open the door for Aleksander Ceferin to extend his stay as president beyond the 12-year limit he helped introduce.
Ceferin was first elected in 2016 to fulfil the remainder of Michel Platini’s term as president. He was re-elected in 2019 and again in April 2023, both times unopposed. His time in power is due to end in 2027. But behind the scenes it is claimed he and his closest aides have been working on an extension plan that would keep him in the hotseat for another four years after that.
Such a move could prove contentious as term limits were seen as a key problem contributing to the crisis at FIFA, though critics claim that FIFA and the culture of the organisation is just as bad now under current president Gianni Infantino’s leadership.
When elected, Ceferin staked his presidency on reform and good governance, grabbing the moral high ground and distancing himself from some of Infantino’s key decisions.
According to Britain’s Daily Mail newspaper, ex-Manchester United CEO David Gill, UEFA’s treasurer and one of its vice-presidents, is leading resistance to planned amendments to the UEFA Statutes that would permit Ceferin a fourth term in office after proposals were apparently tabled during a UEFA Executive Committee in Hamburg last week.
The current wording of the rules state that Ceferin’s first term began when he was first elected in 2016, but changes put forward by UEFA’s legal committee last month would in effect exclude it from the three-term limit by removing any period in office that “started before July 1, 2017”.
The paper says the Slovenian lawyer wants the idea ratified at UEFA Congress in Paris in February when it will be put to a vote of all 55 UEFA member countries with a two-thirds majority required.
“The Legal Committee proposed a number of changes to the statutes which clarify some existing provisions to ensure that none are applicable retroactively – in line with a basic legal principle,” UEFA said in a statement.
“Both the Governance Committee and the Executive Committee approved the changes which will now be considered by Congress in February.”
If approved, it could be argued that Ceferin is in exactly the same predicament as Infantino in terms of engineering an extension to his presidency.
Like Ceferin, Infantino was first elected in 2016 following the resignation of Sepp Blatter and retained his position unopposed three years later. But the FIFA Council, which he chairs, concluded in March that his first three years in charge did not count towards the mandated term limits.
Speaking to digital newspaper Politico in 2021, Ceferin said: “It’s wrong to stay too long . . . you need fresh blood, you need people with ideas. After three mandates, you have to do something else.”
However the argument is that 2.75 mandates isn’t three, in terms of time spent in post. But it could become 3.75 under the proposed change.
Ultimately the UEFA Congress still has to approve the rule change and if Cerferin were to continue beyond 2027, Congress would still have to vote him back in.
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