CEFERIN won’t be standing IN 2027
PARTY LIKE IT’S 1999:
Ole Gunnar Solskjaer celebrates his famous winning goal for United at the Nou Camp 25 years ago
UEFA PRESIDENT Aleksander Ceferin will not stand as a candidate in 2027, announcing the news in a testy statement yesterday just an hour after steering through a controversial change of rules that would have let him stay.
Ceferin has led UEFA since 2016 and said he was “tired of COVID, tired of two wars” and of plans for a rival Super League that he called a “nonsense project.”
He made the surprise announcement by opening a brief news conference with a statement in which he called perceived opponents “clowns” and said people who questioned UEFA’S unity in recent weeks should be “a bit embarrassed now.”
Turmoil
Yet UEFA has gone through unprecedented inner turmoil that damaged its reputation in recent weeks since the Slovenian lawyer moved to amend its rules that would have let him extend his presidency to 15 years until 2031.
UEFA has had a presidential term limit of 12 years since 2017 in anti-corruption reforms passed in fallout from American and Swiss federal investigations of international football that directly led to Ceferin being elected.
Football bodies came under pressure during the American federal investigation to prevent networks of selfserving patronage and influence, and Ceferin himself promised seven years ago he would not stay beyond 2027 in a job that pays him about €3.25m annually.
The apparent power grab on term limits provoked a confrontation at a december 2 closed-doors meeting with UEFA’S longest-standing board member, former Manchester United CEO david Gill.