Cheferin leads UEFA's coup against Infantino
As the linchpin in efforts to exclude FIFA President Gianni Infantino from re-election, Slovenian Aleksander Čeferin is fighting his toughest battle in his decade as head of the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA). He has previously engaged in, and successfully countered, two major threats: the Super League project and the proposal to hold the World Cup every two years.
The 58-year-old Slovenian, who appeared in his characteristic slender frame and icy demeanor yesterday in Salzburg during the European Super Cup clash between French side Paris Saint-Germain and English club Aston Villa, leads a coup of a special kind. He is not driven by personal ambition, having firmly ruled out running for the FIFA presidency in March next year. However, without this criminal law specialist, the public shock following the mid-summer revelation of Infantino’s secret project to open FIFA to private investors—risking a portion of future World Cup revenues—would likely not have escalated into a storm of this magnitude.
UEFA did not stop at brandishing the “nuclear weapon” by threatening to boycott FIFA competitions; it did not back down even after the project was abandoned, considering trust with the Swiss-Italian president irreparably broken, despite Infantino originally hailing from UEFA’s ranks, having served as its second-in-command between 2009 and 2016. Nothing guarantees the success of this rebellion, as Infantino still holds several strong cards, including weak internal oversight mechanisms and the ability to woo FIFA’s 211 member national associations, which alone have the power to decide his fate, while continental confederations lack voting rights. He can leverage FIFA’s massive “war chest” to do so. However, the united front within UEFA, combined with the entry of the Confederation of North, Central America and Caribbean Association Football (CONCACAF) and the Asian Football Confederation into the opposition camp, already bears the imprint of Čeferin’s political style, which favors behind-the-scenes negotiations over the media spotlight.
The unassuming lawyer, elected for the first time in September 2016 to lead the powerful European federation, defeating Dutch candidate Michael van Praag, stated, “I am not showy,” following a scandal involving a suspicious payment linked to FIFA that ousted his French predecessor, Michel Platini. At the time, Čeferin was president of futsal club FC Litija, before taking over the Slovenian Football Association in 2011, presenting himself as a “team player” who believes in dialogue—a trait that has proven highly useful in confronting FIFA’s transformation into something resembling an absolute monarchy.
Čeferin was re-elected unopposed in 2019 and 2023. The official, who is highly respected in the management of a thriving institution, can also boast of reforming the Financial Fair Play regulations, managing a new format for European club competitions, and successfully delaying the European Championship before organizing it in 2021 at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, with matches held across 11 countries. He previously clashed with Infantino over the international match calendar when FIFA attempted in late 2021 to organize the World Cup biennially, and he approached South American Football Confederation president Alejandro Domínguez to thwart that project.
However, this man, who is passionate about motorsports, holds a black belt in karate, and always strives for self-control, failed in the spring of 2021 to anticipate a betrayal by about twelve officials. Six English club presidents, three Italian club presidents, and three Spanish club presidents secretly conspired to launch their own competition, only to back down within 48 hours under the weight of immense public outrage and political maneuvering. With a stern, pale face like his white shirt, Čeferin admitted his “naivety,” then directed his anger at the “twelve snakes” and “scoundrels,” describing their move as a “spit in the face of every football fan.” The bitterest blow for him was the betrayal of Juventus president Andrea Agnelli, who was so close to him that he remains the godfather to one of his daughters.
Čeferin emerged from that incident with a permanent wariness and a close alliance with Qatari figure Nasser Al-Khelaifi, president of French champions Paris Saint-Germain and head of the European Club Association, forming an additional powerful pressure card against FIFA.
