UEFA on Wednesday overwhelmingly elected Slovenian lawyer Aleksander Ceferin, nearly unknown three months ago, as its new president to lead the world’s most powerful football confederation into a new era after Michel Platini was forced to resign.
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The 48-year-old received 42 of the 55 votes from UEFA members to defeat Dutch football administrator Michael van Praag and become the organization’s seventh president.
“Thank you for your fantastic support”. It means a lot to me, it means me and my family are very proud.
“I guarantee you, on my watch I will not allow the clubs to put the gun to our head again”, Ceferin said.
“My small and lovely Slovenia is very proud about it and I hope one day you will also be very proud of me”, Ceferin told UEFA delegates after becoming taking the top post, according to ESPNFC.
“Losing is of course not nice, but I have to thank everybody for the open and clear campaign”, he said.
Several small countries have spoken out against the accord announced on August 26 by UEFA’s executive committee that will be for 2018-21.
Reinhard Grindel, the German federation president, viewed Ceferin’s election as a vote against the UEFA establishment, including Van Praag of the Netherlands.
However the ethics committee, in a weird ruling last week, had cleared Platini to give what was virtually a keynote speech at the address of congress. “I have a clear conscience, I have not made mistakes and will continue my fight in court”.
FIFA has given the French football legend special permission to speak to the special congress in Athens before the election. I think we did a great job.
“You can say that I am young and experienced but I honestly think it disrespectful for all small and medium-sized federations who, 365 days a year, have to do more with less”, he added.
UEFA has elected Slovenian FA head Aleksander Ceferin as its new president. “This responsibility is my compass and I want to maintan the balance between all the stakeholders”.
“I believe that he has all the attributes to bring and create the flawless balance to bring UEFA forward”.
There have been widespread complaints about the changes to the Champions League policies agreed to by UEFA and the European Club Association.
He added: “We are all exhausted of the current situation and look forward to a normalisation period that will be about positive things, about friendship, about football”.
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The newly elected UEFA chief says its the right time for change at the top of UEFA.
