European football leaders on Thursday got right behind their powerful president, Aleksander Ceferin, by approving a change to term limit rules that would allow him to keep his post until 2031, years beyond the organisation’s strict 12-year limit.
The vote, however, quickly became meaningless: About an hour after winning the right to seek a new four-year term as president of European soccer’s governing body, UEFA, Mr. Ceferin said he would not seek.
“I’ve decided I’m not going to run for 2027,” a stony Mr. Ceferin said, reading from prepared notes in the comments he used to simultaneously explain his thinking and clear the air with the media and other soccer officials.
Mr Ceferin said he made the decision not to seek another term six months ago after growing tired of issues such as leading the effort to crack down on a breakaway Super League and managing European football through the pandemic and the wars in Ukraine and Gaza.
He said he had not revealed his plans earlier because he wanted to assess the loyalty of UEFA members first. In recent months, many top members of the governing body’s leadership have publicly and privately opposed his growing power and any weakening of term limits.
Suggestions of a clash first flared at a meeting of UEFA’s executive board in December, when Mr Ceferin’s motivations for the rule change were first questioned. Even though that meeting was getting heated, however, he didn’t take the opportunity to make his intentions clear. Nor did he in January, when one of his top aides, Zvonimir Boban, a former star player from Croatia, resigned — in part, Mr. Boban said, to protest the president’s maneuvering.
That had raised the prospect that Thursday’s vote would offer a whiff of rebellion. Instead, it brought almost total capitulation: When it came time to vote, only England’s FA held a red card of disapproval amid a sea of green cards approving the changes.
Asked why he had not made his plans clear before the vote, Mr Ceferin said he had remained silent for two reasons.
“First,” he said, “I wanted to see the real face of some people and I did. I saw the good and the bad at the same time. And of course I didn’t want to influence the conference. I wanted them to decide without knowing what I’m telling you here today.”
Mr Ceferin has served as UEFA president since winning election in 2016 after a corruption scandal ousted his predecessor. Soon after taking office, he introduced term limits and other revisions as part of a series of changes intended to prevent a repeat of similar scandals.
The charter change approved Thursday was a minor language change, but it would have had a powerful effect on Mr. Ceferin by excluding his brief first term — about three years — from the term limit calculation. That would allow him to run for another term in 2027 and eventually serve up to 15 years.
Mr. Ceferin’s efforts to change the rules had alarmed his critics, who noted that they were at odds with his own statements made shortly after his election. In 2017, Mr. Ceferin had vowed to serve as an example of reform by sticking to the spirit of the new rules, even if that meant resigning before the 12-year term was allowed.
More recently, however, he has been less clear about his plans to step down from his post – and his control over UEFA, a billion-dollar organization that organizes events such as the Champions League, which are some of the richest and most popular sporting events on the planet.
The job is undeniably attractive: It comes with an annual salary of $3 million, luxury travel and the chance to rub shoulders with celebrities, political leaders and sports stars — all while Mr. Ceferin commutes from his home in Slovenia to UEFA headquarters in Switzerland. on a weekly basis, according to his long-standing agreement with the governing body. At the same time, Mr. Ceferin used staff appointments, hosting rights and millions of dollars in development payments to tighten his grip on the presidency.
Given those facts, even some of his harshest critics – a small group within the 55 member confederations that make up UEFA – pulled back from offering a public rebuke on Thursday. The Norwegian Football Association, for example, after failing to disentangle the term-limits amendment from a number of other changes, voted in favor. So did others, including several officials who only a night earlier had privately bemoaned the dangers of concentrating power in the hands of one man.
A federation chief executive admitted his country’s private bookings should remain just that, saying there was no upside to Mr Ceferin’s public challenge. When it came time to vote, his federation quietly raised its green card.
Only England voted in opposition. He was left with little choice after the words of David Gill, UEFA’s English vice-president, became known after a meeting held in December. At that meeting, Mr Gill, the former chief executive of Manchester United, clashed with Mr Ceferin over the change, accusing the chairman of going against the spirit of reforms he once espoused.
On Thursday, Mr Gill – UEFA’s longest-serving board member – was given the equivalent of an official cold shoulder, sitting on the edge of the court, in a position usually reserved for more junior members.
“We supported UEFA’s proposed statute changes, with one exception,” England’s FA said in a statement after the vote – a reference to the language on term limits. “We have recently implemented governance changes of our own and we believe it is important to be consistent in our approach.”
Mr. Ceferin also used Thursday’s news conference to take aim at Mr. Boban, once one of his closest aides. Mr Boban resigned as UEFA’s director of football in January, citing proposed rule changes and a sharp criticism of Mr Ceferin in the letter announcing his departure.
On Thursday, Mr. Ceferin argued that Mr. Boban knew at the time of his plan not to run for re-election and suggested that Mr. Boban’s resignation was a “narcissistic” bid for attention. Mr Boban did not immediately respond to his former boss’ claim.
One relationship Mr Ceferin chose to highlight was his improved relationship with Gianni Infantino, the president of soccer’s world governing body, FIFA. The recent rapprochement between the men, who recently went more than a year without speaking, comes after Mr Infantino also pushed for a rule change that would have allowed him to remain in power beyond FIFA’s term limits.
“Today, my friends, more than ever, the common good must prevail over individual interests,” Mr. Ceferin said. “That’s always been my mantra and I’ll never change.”
