Former UEFA President Michel Platini, waves after his speech during the vote for the new UEFA president a in Athens, on Wednesday, Sept. 14, 2016.
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The agenda centred on who would replace Michel Platini at the helm of European football’s governing body, with Slovenian FA President Ceferin up against his counterpart from the Netherlands, Michael van Praag.
The Frenchman, who resigned in May after being banned for from the sport for four years for ethics violations, was given a round of applause by the delegates but did not get a standing ovation.
“Just simply know that my conscience is clear, that I am certain that I committed not the slightest fault and that I am continuing to fight legally”, the 62-year-old said. “For everything else, I have to sit down with the 55 members and see what is the agreement and what we can do about it. Friends of football, farewell”, said Platini, who was first elected in 2007.
Michael van Praag will reopen negotiations over the format for the Champions League if he is elected UEFA president on Wednesday, saying a breakaway league would take place “over my dead body”. “It was without leadership for sometime and I think that in a way was a problem dealing with those things”, Ceferin said. “You are going to continue this wonderful mission without me”.
The pair were banned over a payment of $2.08 million made in 2011 to the Frenchman by Federation Internationale de Football Association with Blatter’s approval for work done 10 years earlier.
Platini told the candidates that “football is a game before a product, a sport before a market, a show before a market”. For millions of people around the world, football is a flame.
Ceferin, who has been the Slovenian Football Association chief since 2011, has several times highlighted the “widening” wealth gap between Europe’s football powers and smaller nations.
He was elected president of the Royal Dutch Football Federation in 2008 and re-elected five years later and has been on UEFA’s executive committee since 2009.
Uefa and European clubs last month agreed changes to the Champions League, which critics said favour bigger clubs.
He also wants term limits for the UEFA president and executive committee members.
“But today democracy has spoken and I respect that.
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No power-hungry politician”, van Praag said in a tweet last week in reaction to a Swedish media report that suggested his rival had promised Nordic countries they could stage a future European Championship. It means my family is very proud about it.
