Democracy, UEFA Style: An Election Under A Cloud

A Favourite Without A Profile

When the timetable for the UEFA presidential election was announced on May 18th, few would have picked Aleksander Ceferin as the favourite. The 48-year-old Slovenian lawyer was such a low-profile figure in international football politics that he lacked a Wikipedia page, that modern necessity for public life. His experience in club football, according to UEFA’s own website, was limited to a committee role at amateur side FC Ljubljana Lawyers and a membership at NK Olimpija Ljubljana. His most significant footballing role dates back only to 2011, when he became president of the Slovenian FA.

Ceferin’s relative inexperience has been framed as a virtue, putting distance between him and the scandal-plagued old guard of European football’s governing body. Yet it also raised questions about his eligibility for his domestic role in the first place. Candidates for the Slovenian FA presidency needed five years’ service on a club board, a requirement Ceferin failed to meet after only six months at Olimpija. He was deemed eligible thanks to prior “consultancy” work, a ruling conveniently provided by the law faculty of Ljubljana University, his own alma mater.

This thin record has not stopped him from becoming the frontrunner to replace the disgraced Michel Platini in Athens this week. His rapid ascent has been fuelled by early, coordinated support from a block of smaller nations and, more recently, backing from heavyweights like Germany and France. But it is the nature of that initial support that has drawn the most scrutiny, arriving before any manifesto had been published or any opponents had even declared.

A Bullet Dodged

The race could have been very different. For a time, it seemed Ángel María Villar Llona would be a major contender. As UEFA’s senior vice-president, he had been acting president in Platini’s absence, a position he leveraged from decades of service on the executive committees of both UEFA and FIFA. Villar Llona is a football man of the old school, having played for Athletic Bilbao and Spain. Last November, FIFA’s ethics committee fined him 25,000 Swiss Francs for failing to cooperate with the investigation into the 2018 and 2022 World Cup bids.

His candidacy was dogged by credibility issues from the moment it was floated. When he pledged to bring “good governance, transparency and democratic participation” to UEFA, it was met with widespread derision. Reuters journalist Brian Homewood tweeted: “No sniggering at the back.” Villar Llona eventually withdrew from the race last week, citing calls for him to remain as president of the Spanish football federation. Whatever the real reason, his departure means UEFA has dodged a bullet.

An Old-School Business

With Villar Llona gone, the election is a two-horse race between Ceferin and the Dutch FA president, Michael van Praag. Van Praag has the stronger football administration pedigree, having presided over Ajax during their 1995 Champions League triumph. He declared his candidacy almost immediately and is seen as the establishment choice, backed by the English FA’s David Gill, who praised him as someone they “have come to know very well”.

Van Praag has positioned himself as the reform candidate, yet his manifesto, titled Building Bridges, also speaks of “continuity” and “stability”. After seven years on the UEFA Executive Committee, he admits he has “seen things slide away,” an admission that may condemn him more than any external attack. Ceferin has shrewdly tapped into this dissatisfaction, telling one website, “People are fed up with the (UEFA) Exco and its favouritism and its exclusivity.”

The manifestos themselves offer little to separate the two men. Both commit to fighting the threat of a breakaway super league and promise to protect the interests of all clubs, not just a “happy few”. Ceferin calls for term limits for the president, while Van Praag has pledged to serve only until the end of Platini’s original term in 2019, before handing over to “fresh young leadership”.

The real division has emerged over allegations of improper interference from FIFA president Gianni Infantino. A report in the Dutch newspaper de Volkskrant in July, now substantially backed up by an investigation in the Norwegian football magazine Josimar, claims that Infantino’s advisor, Kjetil Siem, lobbied on Ceferin’s behalf at a meeting of Nordic football associations in Milan on May 28th. The report, titled ‘The President’s Man’, alleges that Siem “actively worked to gather votes for Ceferin” and that promises of a UEFA board seat and a future European Championship hosting gig were made in return for support. Siem, who was still technically an employee of the Norwegian FA at the time, insists he was only speaking for himself. But others present found it “unthinkable that his message would not be in harmony with the opinions of his future boss.”

This has caused relations between the candidates to sour considerably. Van Praag tweeted his “shock” at the story, stating: “If it is true, we are back to the old-school way of doing business in the football world.” Ceferin responded by accusing his opponent of using “the methods of the old school, making up stories”.

It seems that even in an election designed to move on from the scandals of the past, the shadow of old-school politics looms large. On Wednesday in Athens, we will find out if it is large enough to decide the outcome.