UEFA lost one of its main officials on Thursday, football director Zvonimir Boban, opposed to the procedure initiated by the head of the body Aleksander Ceferin to be able to be renewed until 2031, we learned from sources close to the case.
Glory of Croatian football as well as AC Milan, the ex-playmaker explains, in a letter sent to several European media, having expressed to Ceferin “his great concern and his total disapproval” at the idea of extending the lease of the president outside the three-term limit that he himself introduced.
The boss of European football “replied that, in his eyes, there was no legal, moral or ethical problem, and that he would persist without the slightest doubt with this idea, which in my opinion was disastrous,” writes Boban, who chose to “leave UEFA” in the name of “the principles and values in which (he believes) deeply”.
Aleksander Ceferin, who has chaired UEFA since September 2016 and was reappointed in April 2023 for what should have been his final four-year term, submitted a proposed amendment in December allowing his extension. This will be submitted to the vote of the body’s Congress in Paris on February 8.
Technically, this text does not remove the limit of three mandates, one of the key measures taken in April 2017 by the Slovenian leader, after the cascade of scandals which had splashed world sport and led to similar limitations at Fifa and the IOC .
But the amendment consulted by AFP specifies that this rule, valid for all members of the executive committee, does not take into account mandates “started before July 1, 2017”, i.e. Ceferin’s first lease. The only justification provided, in a note, is “the legal principle of non-retroactivity”.
In the same series of proposals there is the removal of the age limit of 70 years for being elected or re-elected to the executive committee, on the grounds that the three-term cap “is considered sufficient in this regard”.
However, this is the other measure put forward by Ceferin in 2017 to break with an “old and corrupt system”, recalls Boban. With these “historic” reforms, the Slovenian lawyer had “earned the respect of the entire football community and the public, and had become an indisputable moral authority and, for many, a guide to better football”, insists. he.