The 48-year-old lawyer beat his only challenger, Dutchman Michael van Praag, at the Extraordinary UEFA Congress in Athens with a tally of 42 votes to 13. He had used his speech to appeal to the smaller nations of UEFA’s 55 members. He will now be in office until 2019.
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After his victory, he said: “It is a great honour, but also a great responsibility. My small and lovely Slovenia is also very proud about it. Thank you very much”, the Slovanian was quoted as saying by goal.com. “It was without leadership for sometime and I think that in a way was a problem dealing with those things”, Ceferin said.
“What I know is that I’m a team player, a man of conviction, a passionate man and a man of his word”.
Platini, along with Sepp Blatter, initially received a ban of eight years in last December over claims that he had received a ‘disloyal payment ‘ of 1.35 million pounds from the former Federation Internationale de Football Association president in 2011.
The 60-year old Italian said: “I will try to do my best for representing UEFA first of all and women too, and I am very passionate with women’s football”. “About everything else, we will have to sit down and see what is the agreement and what we can do in future about it”. It means my family is very proud about it.
He said: “We can be proud of what we have achieved but there is a long way to go and a lot we need to do to make sure that football stays the same one game”.
Ceferin surprised people when he took over the presidency of Slovenia’s football association, the NZS, in 2011 and quickly joined FIFA’s disciplinary committee and UEFA’s legal committee.
Newly elected UEFA President Slovenian Aleksander Ceferin.
Michael van Praag (l) lost to Aleksander Ceferin (r) in the election. We have the same goals, look at our programmes. But I promise you and I promise Aleksander that I will support him wholeheartedly.
“He wants to do it his way and I wanted to do it mine but democracy has spoken and I respect that”.
The conference was also attended by Platini, who is banned by Fifa’s ethics committee for taking a payment of 2 million Swiss francs in 2011.
“It is up to him but if he wants my assistance, but I of course offer it to him”.
Platini told his audience he had a clear conscience and will continue to fight in court.
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He added that the “wind of change” was blowing through European football.
