Slovenian Aleksander Ceferin was elected on Wednesday as the new president of the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) during its Extraordinary Congress hosted in Athens.
Advertisement
Reinhard Grindel, the German federation president, viewed Ceferin’s election as a vote against the UEFA establishment, including Van Praag of the Netherlands. He will now be in office until 2019.
The three-time Ballon d’Or victor told the congress of UEFA’s 55 members that he was speaking to them “with great emotion”. It means a lot to me, it means me and my family are very proud. It means a lot to me and my family is very proud, and my small and handsome Slovenia is very proud about it.
First and foremost, I will look to change to the UEFA statutes to include term-mandate limitations for the president and UEFA executive committee.
“You can say that I am young and inexperienced but I honestly think it disrespectful for all small and medium-sized federations who, 365 days a year, have to do more with less”. “I am not a showman and I’m not a man of unrealistic promises”. I think we did a great job …
“I have seen first hand the great work that Aleksander has done for football and we have been very impressed with him so far”, said Delaney.
Following his victory, Ceferin thanked the members for their support before admitting that with great honours come great responsibilities.
Euronews’ Ioannis Karagiorgas was in Athens and explained: “UEFA’ s new president was elected by a landslide”.
The session was somewhat controversially opened by Platini, who remains banned for four years but had been granted special permission by FIFA’s ethics committee to bid farewell to the organisation he has run since 2007 as a “gesture of humanity”. “I also want to clarify that I do not want criticise those who did not support me, each being entitled to have their own convictions”.
Ceferin was appointed president of the Slovenian Football Association in 2011 and has a background in law.
Advertisement
Both candidates campaigned to help UEFA’s middle-sized and smaller members and said it was necessary to close the gap between big and small clubs, although Van Praag was more outspoken in Wednesday’s pre-vote speeches. “I am certain not to have made any mistakes and I will continue to fight this [ban] in the courts”.
