World Soccer - October 2016

THE WORLD
THIS MONTH
Keir
RADNEDGE
THE INSIDER
Three-way fight for the
vacant UEFA presidency
20 WORLD SOCCER
After a near year-long stasis, UEFA is about to
find itself a new president, and the options for
delegates of the 55 national associations, who
meet in an emergency congress on September
14 in Athens, are intriguing.
The three runners are: comparatively
unknown Aleksander Ceferin, who is head of
the Slovenia FA, Dutch federation president
Michael Van Praag and senior vice-president
Angel Maria Villar from Spain.
Ceferin, who is the favourite, has support
from the old eastern block nations plus the
Nordics, while the Republic of Ireland has also
declared itself in his camp. And their reasoning
is simple – these are the nations who want to
maintain the status quo in terms of Champions
League and European Championship access
which was reorganised to suit them (and his
own electoral purposes) by Michel Platini.
The Frenchman was removed from the
platform last October by the FIFA ethics
committee as it launched its investigation into
the strange affair of the SFr2million paid to
him by then FIFA president Sepp Blatter out of
world federation funds in February 2011.
Platini said it was a long-delayed payment
Candidate...
Angel Maria Villar
for work undertaken as Blatter’s “football
counsellor” between 1999 and 2002, yet
neither the ethics chamber nor the subsequent
appeal panels ever saw evidential paperwork.
That was one mystery; the second one
was how investigators from the Office of the
Swiss Attorney General turned up this issue so
conveniently and quickly. Benny Alon, the ticket
tout who helped bring down Jerome Valcke,
UEFA has been standing still for 10
months, and counting. There are a
number of important issues to be dealt
with which have not been addressed
pointed a finger at the now-banned FIFA
secretary-general but without any evidence.
With Platini out of the picture, a new
president is needed before UEFA seals the
new 2019-21 deal with the clubs and the TV
companies and sponsors – and with it the
usual ongoing power struggle between the big
clubs and the federations.
Sabre rattling always includes scare stories
about breakaways and super leagues, and
it has been no different this time round.
Interestingly, these “leaks” play into the hands
of Ceferin. While Van Praag and Villar are
viewed as members of the western European
establishment which needs to keep the big
clubs happy, a vote for Ceferin could be seen
as a vote for balance and a fair share-out.
As Platini proved when ousting Lennart
Johansson and then securing re-election twice
over, this is a powerful political argument.
When it comes to political liaisons, however,
Villar probably has an advantage, but his
electoral situation is complex.
After 26 years running the Spanish
federation, the Basque middle man sitting
between the rivals from Madrid and Barcelona
is regarded as a conservative member of
international football’s old guard. But as a
senior vice-president of UEFA and FIFA, Villar
was an opponent of the investigations into the
2018 and 2022 World Cup bidding farrago and
was rapped over the knuckles for it by the
ethics committee.
He is also coming under pressure in Spain,
particularly from Sports Council president
Miguel Cardenal, and faces a contested
presidential election immediately after the
UEFA vote. To become president of Europe’s
federation would offer Villar an escape route
from the gathering storm back home.
A serial avoider of the media, Villar has
been reticent in offering any reason as to why
Europe’s associations should vote for him, apart
from political loyalty from Latin quarters.
The same cannot be said about Van Praag,
who has published
a cogent manifesto
and can claim to be
the ideal candidate
to take over in these
difficult times.
As a former club
president of Ajax,
head of the KNVB and successful businessman
in his own right, Van Praag has an unparalleled
insight into the way the system works. And as
the man who stood up, in Sao Paulo in 2014,
and told Blatter to his face that it was time to
get out, he is also not afraid of a fight.
Van Praag has entitled his manifesto
“Building Bridges” and in it he preaches a need
for unity at a time when “mutual connection