He will succeed Frenchman Michel Platini, who quit his post after being banned from football for four years.
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The 61-year-old Platini stepped down as UEFA president in May after the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) rejected his appeal against his six-year ban from all football-related activities, handed down by FIFA last December.
Many of them are angry at the recent deal Champions League negotiated by the Uefa executive committee with the continent’s biggest clubs amid saber rattling over a breakaway.
Ceferin, who has crossed the Sahara desert four times by auto and once on a motorbike, was elected president of Slovenia’s football federation in 2011 but was not internationally known until he announced he meant to stand in June.
Ceferin, who is not a member of UEFA’s executive committee, was little known outside his country until he announced his intention to run in June.
Unlike his predecessor Michel Platini, France’s top goal-scorer, Ceferin does not come from a sports background, and won’t be popular for those who want a former player to represent the body.
The newly-elected UEFA president said on Monday his first big challenge would be to look at changes to the Champions League that would give four guaranteed places to England, Germany, Italy and Spain from 2018.
“I am not a showman, I have no ego issues and I am not a man of unrealistic promises”, he told delegates before the vote.
“Uefa is a very good, strong organisation”.
However the ethics committee, in a freakish ruling last week, had cleared Platini to give what was virtually a keynote speech at the address of congress.
“I guarantee you, on my watch I will not allow the clubs to put the gun to our head again”, Ceferin said.
Platini, who left the stage to a smattering of applause, added: “I want to thank everyone in this room who had the courage and loyalty to support me during the past months. I am certain not to have made any mistakes and I will continue to fight this [ban] in the courts”. The English FA was among the handful of Uefa’s 55 members that voted for Van Praag. I think we did a great job …
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Platini was banished along with Blatter over a payment of two million Swiss francs ($A2.8 million) made to the Frenchman by Federation Internationale de Football Association with Blatter’s approval in 2011 for work done a decade earlier.
