УЕФА-гийн тэргүүн Жанни Инфантиногийн бодлогыг эрс шүүмжилж, түүнийг албан тушаалаасаа огцрохыг уриалжээ.
УЕФА-гийн ерөнхийлөгч Александер Чеферин ФИФА-гийн тэргүүн Жанни Инфантиног орлох сонирхолгүй байгаагаа илэрхийлж, өөрийн нэр дэвших магадлалыг үгүйсгэлээ. Тэрээр Инфантиногийн Дэлхийн аваргын тэмцээний хувьцааг хувийн хөрөнгө оруулагчдад худалдах төлөвлөгөөг “Супер лиг”-ээс ч дор шийдвэр хэмээн тодорхойлж, хөлбөмбөгийн спортыг худалдах гэсэн оролдлого гэж шүүмжилжээ.
ФИФА-гийн гишүүн холбоодын эсэргүүцэлтэй тулгарсан тус төсөл зогссон хэдий ч улс төрийн хурцадмал байдал үргэлжилсээр байна. Инфантино ирэх гуравдугаар сард Рабат хотноо болох сонгуулиар дөрөв дэх удаагаа ерөнхийлөгчөөр сонгогдохоор төлөвлөж байгаа бөгөөд УЕФА тэргүүтэй байгууллагууд түүнийг огцрохыг шаардаж буй юм.
Чеферин өөрийн байр сууриа хамгаалахдаа, УЕФА-гийн тэргүүний хувьд өөрийн ажилдаа сэтгэл хангалуун байгаа бөгөөд нэр дэвшихгүй байх нь өөрийнх нь нэр хүндийг илүү өндөрт хадгалах болно гэдгийг онцоллоо. Мөн тэрээр ФИФА-гийн дүрэм журмыг үл хүндэтгэж, АНУ-ын тоглогч Фоларин Балогуны торгуулийг цуцалсан зэрэг үйл явдлуудыг хүлээн зөвшөөрөх боломжгүй хэмээн хатуу шүүмжилсэн байна.
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UEFA boss Aleksander Ceferin has ruled himself out of running for the FIFA presidency but restated his belief that Gianni Infantino’s reign at the global governing body is on borrowed time.
In an interview with The Rest is Politics: Leading podcast, which was released on Monday, Ceferin described Infantino’s plan to sell a stake in the World Cup to private investors as “even worse than the Super League plan” that saw 12 of Europe’s top clubs try to form a breakaway competition in 2021.
Like that scheme, Infantino’s FIFA Forward Enterprise (FFE) idea collapsed within days of it being made public but the political storm it caused continues to rage, with three of FIFA’s six regional confederations, including UEFA, demanding Infantino’s resignation.
Infantino, however, has made it clear that he has no intention to quit and has spent the last few weeks trying to rally his supporters ahead of what looks likely to be a showdown between him and his critics in the Moroccan capital of Rabat in March, when the Swiss-Italian plans to stand for a fourth four-year term as FIFA president.
Ceferin, his loudest and most powerful critic, is determined to stop that from happening.
“Everyday there are different discussions,” the Slovenian lawyer-turned-football-administrator said. “I didn’t speak with (Infantino) — he didn’t contact me since this happened. But there are two options.
“One option is that he realises that he doesn’t have the support — and that’s not only the political support of the ones who vote, but the political support of the football community, the political support of fans, the political support of the players, former players, coaches.
“And the second option is that goes to the elections in March but, in that case, I think he will (have) a candidate against him. I don’t know yet who.”
Will Infantino keep his job as FIFA President?
Adam Leventhal
Asked by the podcast host Alastair Campbell, the former UK government spin doctor, if that candidate might be him, Ceferin said: “I’m not interested because of two reasons. One reason is that I love UEFA and I love working here. And I think that at a certain point … it’s time also to enjoy life a bit. Let’s see till when. And the second point is my credibility is much, much, much higher if I’m not interested in the position.”
Ceferin’s first point is interesting as he, too, has been considering whether or not he should run for a fourth term as UEFA’s leader when his third term finishes in 2027. Like FIFA, UEFA presidents are only supposed to serve a maximum of three terms but both organisations have ruled that the terms Ceferin and Infantino started in 2016, following the last governance crisis at FIFA, do not count as full terms, meaning they can stand again.
And his second reason bolsters the widely-held view that while UEFA is the most important bloc of votes lined up against Infantino, it cannot look like it is dictating terms to the rest of global football, as that would play into Infantino’s hands.
The FIFA boss has spent the last decade portraying himself as the one man able to redistribute the global game’s wealth from the haves in Europe to the have-nots elsewhere. He has done this by massively increasing the amount of money FIFA shares, entirely equally, with its 211 member associations and expanding its tournaments, most notably the men’s World Cup and Club World Cup.
And that was also Infantino’s justification for his FFE initiative, which involved creating a new subsidiary that controlled all of FIFA’s money-making operations, namely its tournaments, and selling a 20 per cent stake to a group of private investors led by a fund run by Joshua Kushner, the brother of U.S. President Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner.
Ceferin’s view of this project, which Infantino worked on in secret with a handful of advisors and bankers, is scathing.
“I think (it) is even worse than the Super League plan,” he said. “In the first case, super important clubs wanted to do their own league, which is wrong and we would destroy football. But, in this case, football would be literally sold. I’m absolutely sure that the plan is dead. But things get too far.
“Now, in football, politics is sometimes even more complicated or, if you want, dirty than normal politics. So you never know what will happen in the future. But, for me, the most important thing is that we stopped another try to sell to sell the sport.
“I mean, it’s hard to to imagine what kind of people would sell the sport that belongs to everyone.”
Asked if UEFA’s 55 member associations would go through with their threat to boycott a World Cup if Infantino survives and tries to revive this plan, Ceferin said: “I’ll try to be optimistic and say that it will never happen. But, if it happens — but I really doubt it will happen — everything is possible. Everything is possible.
“We will not allow that to happen. And now it’s not anymore about the project. The project is dead.”
Ceferin believes Infantino’s project is “dead”. (Odd Andersen / AFP via Getty Images)
Ceferin was equally dismissive of Infantino’s attempts to turn this row into another example of European football trying to defend its dominant market position against everyone else.
“What I hear is that they play on, you know, arrogant Europe is against us — ‘they have enough money but I help the small and the poor’ — and stuff like that,” he said.
“But I think someone should remind him that he is a European and that he was supported by UEFA (in 2016), which he forgot.”
In fact, Infantino spent 16 years at UEFA, rising through the ranks to become secretary general in 2009, which meant he was second only to France and Juventus great Michel Platini within the organisation, although with much lower public profile.
That changed, though, when Platini was caught up in the FIFA corruption crisis that torpedoed Sepp Blatter’s long reign, meaning UEFA needed a new candidate to run for football’s top job. That candidate was Infantino but he has completely burnt his bridges with his former colleagues now.
In the rest of the podcast, Ceferin explains that UEFA was not informed about Infantino’s decision to give Trump a FIFA Peace Prize — “a strange prize” — at the World Cup draw last December and knew nothing about the FFE plan until it was reported by the media.
He also described the video conference call UEFA held with its member associations a few days after those reports, when 40 of the 55 federation bosses spoke.
“They were so mad,” he said. “That was such a unanimous reaction of the federations that I was touched really.
“On one side was England, Germany, who you understand don’t want that, because this money is not so big for them. But on the other side was San Marino, Cyprus, Liechtenstein, who all supported it. They said: we’re not for sale.”
Ceferin also strongly criticised FIFA’s decision to suspend U.S. striker Folarin Balogun’s one-game ban during the World Cup, which came after Trump asked Infantino to review the ban, describing it as “more than shocking”.
“We have rules and, if you don’t respect your own rules, then the game doesn’t make any sense,” he said. “That’s shocking and — trust me — almost everybody was shocked. Just not everybody dared to speak.”
Ceferin also retells the story of the ESL crisis and his “betrayal” by its ringleader Andrea Agnelli, the former European Club Association president and Juventus boss.
Towards the end of the interview, former England star and BBC presenter Gary Lineker, the co-owner of “The Rest is…” stable of podcasts, asks Ceferin to defend UEFA’s financial fair play rules against claims they have entrenched the financial advantages of Europe’s elite clubs.
The UEFA chief admits that “narrowing the gap is quite a problem” but says the rules have stopped the gap from “becoming bigger and bigger”.
He also acknowledged the frustrations fans have with VAR, particularly with highly debatable handball decisions, but said it has “helped” improve offside calls.
And he also said the Premier League is Europe’s “strongest … because they have so many competitive teams” — a point demonstrated this weekend by Brighton & Hove Albion dismantling Aston Villa, one of the teams Ceferin picked out for special praise.
