UEFA will hold a presidential election on Wednesday to choose a replacement for disgraced Frenchman Michel Platini.
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Slovenian Aleksander Ceferin was elected on Wednesday in Athens as the seventh President of UEFA, defeating his opponent Michael van Praag from The Netherlands by a significant margin, with 42 votes against 13. “I don’t believe that officials serving for 20 or more years in such key positions is healthy for any organisation”, he said. “I don’t want to live in an empire of fear where every day we wake and see another negativity surfacing”. The Scottish Football Association said it would vote for the Slovenian.
MICHAEL VAN PRAAG A former amateur referee, his father Jaap van Praag was chairman of Ajax Amsterdam from 1964 to 1978 when they built a memorable team which won the European Cup three times in succession.
Even stranger, in the eyes of many, was the decision of Uefa to allow its deposed leader, Platini, who has been banned from football for four years, to make a farewell address to the congress as a “gesture of humanity”.
He said that UEFA had to be a leader in good governance and transparency. “I am certain not to have made any mistakes and I will continue to fight this [ban] in the courts”.
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.
Sepp Blatter and Michel Platini banned from football activities.
“Dear friends, thank you for your fantastic support”, Mr Ceferin said after the result was announced.
The new president was elected for 2.5 years until the next regular congress of Europe’s governing football body.
“It’s a great honour but, at the same time, a great responsibility”, said Ceferin.
Numerous smaller nations involved in Uefa backed Ceferin after plans emerged for changes to the flagship Champions League competition whih would allow more established clubs from bigger countries to gain more places.
“Whether I want it or not, I have to deal with it”.
“Today the wind of change is blowing through European football”.
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The duo were handed eight-year bans, later reduced to six years on appeal to Federation Internationale de Football Association, then to four years in a further appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport.
