Ceferin attacks FIFA governance as clubs back another term
UEFA president Aleksander Ceferin has accused FIFA’s leadership of disguising secrecy as consultation, as European Football Clubs chairman Nasser Al-Khelaifi urged him to seek another term in office.
UEFA president Aleksander Ceferin has delivered a direct attack on Gianni Infantino’s abandoned commercial investment proposal, telling European club executives that football’s leadership must stop accepting decisions made without those affected having a meaningful say.Speaking at the European Football Clubs (EFC) General Assembly in Copenhagen, Ceferin invoked Hans Christian Andersen’s ‘The Emperor’s New Clothes’ to challenge FIFA’s description of its shelved FIFA Forward Enterprise project.Ceferin said: “We all know the story. An emperor is persuaded that he is wearing magnificent clothes, clothes which he is told only the foolish or unfit cannot see.“His court goes along with it until a child simply says aloud what everybody can see. The emperor is naked.”The proposal would have established a FIFA-controlled commercial subsidiary holding rights to competitions including the men’s and women’s World Cups and the Club World Cup, with private investors able to acquire up to 20%.Infantino had presented the initiative as a way to increase funding for football development and said it was subject to democratic consultation with FIFA’s 211 member associations, before opposition led to its abandonment.Ceferin argued that the terminology used to defend the project did not reflect how it had been pursued.He continued: “Perhaps the moral of the story is convenient words cannot change uncomfortable realities.“Now world football has heard some very convenient words recently. Development, democratization, consultation, words used in fact to describe the opposite.“Selling part of football’s future does not become development because you say it’s development.“Putting a fait accompli in front of national associations does not mean democratisation, even if you call it democratisation. However big the check is. And secrecy does not become consultation because you call it consultation.”His remarks broadened the dispute beyond the withdrawn investment plan, questioning whether FIFA’s decision-making arrangements provide adequate scrutiny of proposals involving football’s commercial assets.Ceferin asked club executives to imagine a senior official secretly negotiating away control of their organisation’s most valuable assets without the knowledge of directors, players or supporters, with the transaction almost completed before they discovered it.He also described a hypothetical official creating an award for a politician whose subsequent telephone call was followed by a change in the application of rules.Ceferin challenged delegates: “How many times would this have to happen at your clubs before the world says ‘enough’? Well, my friends, I think it’s time to say enough.”The intervention came as Al-Khelaifi publicly urged Ceferin to stand for re-election next year, placing the support of EFC’s more than 900 member clubs behind the UEFA president.Al-Khelaifi said: “I have to thank you – for being patient, for supporting the clubs, for defending what is best for football, even when it is not easy.“Football needs great leaders like you and on behalf of the more than 900 clubs of EFC we ask you to stand for President again next year.”The endorsement reinforced the alliance between UEFA and the clubs’ representative organisation at a time when both are pressing for changes to the governance of international football.Al-Khelaifi pointed to their UC3 joint venture, which he said would generate more than €20bn over the next four-year cycle, with around €2bn distributed to clubs outside European competitions and youth and women’s football.He contrasted that partnership with the disputes occupying football’s wider leadership, arguing that disagreements could be resolved through direct discussion.Al-Khelaifi added: “When UEFA and the clubs work hand in hand, football wins. Any issue, any problem – we deal with them face to face.“Sometimes UEFA is not happy with the clubs. Sometimes the clubs are not happy with UEFA. But we find solutions.”Together, the speeches combined an explicit endorsement of Ceferin’s leadership with a demand for stronger accountability at FIFA, keeping the governance dispute alive despite the withdrawal of the investment proposal.