After the statements of Florentino Perez in the Assembly of real Madrid held this Sunday, in which the president of the white team stated that he had hope that the Super League project would come to fruition go ahead and attack UEFA, Ceferin has made a move.
The president of UEFA, Aleksander Čeferin, requested help this Tuesday from the European Union to protect the current “inclusive, redistributive and democratic” model of governance of European football, in the face of “selfish” systems like the Super League that “seek to destroy it.”
“We need more legal certainty to protect this success story. The law must be used to protect the European football model, not to turn the wheel of those who seek to destroy it for their own power and selfish game. The pyramid must stay together,” Ceferin said at a Council of Sports Ministers of the EU countries.
The Slovenian leader, at the head of UEFA since 2016 after the resignation of Frenchman Michel Platini due to a corruption scandal, praised the virtues of the social governance system after UEFA has received several legal setbacks.
One of the most relevant came in the ruling of the Court of Justice of the European Union in December 2023, where the court considered that the FIFA and UEFA rules on the prior authorization of club football competitions, such as the Super League, violate Union law.
Ceferin did not specifically refer to the details of that ruling, but did refer to the context of that fight to modify the governance of football. “Do you remember the indignation when a separatist and selfish project put the European football model at risk? Let me be frank: every time we try to reinforce the solidarity model, We expose ourselves to threats from operators who want more for themselves and share less with others,” he said.
The UEFA president warned that this type of initiative has prospered in other disciplines and has had negative consequences, such as in basketball, where the “elitist rupture” has brought “division, exclusion and the collapse of solidarity.”
“UEFA and European football are criticized for being all about money, about big games and big things. But that criticism ignores a fundamental part (…): we redistribute in football the 97% of our net profits,” he said.
Ceferin assured that the remaining funds are “to maintain vital costs and support areas of sport such as youth, women or football”.
“And when we make more money, we give more money. Who else does that? Tell me an NGO that spends only 3% in operation,” Ceferin launched before the headlines of Sport of the Twenty-Seven, who stressed that it is “an investment in the public interest.”
Protect the European football model
The Slovenian asked the Member States “a sports policy that really has teeth” around three axes, starting with ensuring that “the link between European football and domestic competitions” is “fully protected”.
“The annual performance in domestic competitions must be the sole criterion to qualify for Europe. Allowing this bond to be broken or twisted in any way would be a devastating betrayal of the domestic leagues, iconic aspects of European football. For Member States with small football teams and leagues it is an existential question,” he said.
Secondly, the UEFA president also asked that “the balance between national teams and club competitions” be preserved because “it supports the entire model of solidarity and football development” and pHe also wanted to close ranks in the face of a unified management.
“Football is not boxing. We do not have multiple champions crowned each year by different governing bodies. Football is unified with a single annual championship without discussion at the domestic and European level. We must all realize that continuing to protect this unified model. Without it, the entire system would collapse,” he reasoned.
In that sense, he noted that UEFA needs “more legal certainty to protect this success story.” “The law must be used to protect the model of European football, not to turn the wheel of those who seek to destroy it for their own power and selfish games. “The pyramid must stay together,” he said.