UEFA president, Slovenian Aleksandar Ceferin, said the new Champions League was “the last nail in the coffin of the“ Super League ”and appreciated that preventing alternative competition from being faked was the biggest achievement of his mandate.
“The key to everything is preventing, in two, three days, the crazy idea of the so -called Super League, which means the total destruction of football, the end of the European model of sport,” Ceferin said in an interview with the agency. . Published today by the Slovenian STA.
The 54-year-old Slovenian lawyer is confident of securing another term as head of UEFA in April 2023, where he wants to continue upholding the values of unity, inclusion and openness in football and against discrimination and populism.
He explained that the Champions League reform, approved on Tuesday by the UEFA Executive Committee in Vienna, represents a definite end point in the super league project.
“That was the last nail in the coffin. The coffin was prepared earlier, but now we have to close it completely,” the EUFA head said.
At a press conference in Vienna after the UEFA Congress ended on Wednesday, Ceferin assured that “the Super League has been done once and for all, for at least 20 years.”
The benefits of reform
During 2024-25, the Champions League will have 36 clubs, four more than today. In the first stage, each will play eight games against different opponents according to the so-called Swiss model, which, in his opinion, will help make the battles more interesting.
“The big teams will play more games against the big ones, but also against the medium teams. The modest ones will also play against others in their category and will have more chances to advance,” he summarized in the interview. .
“That system is going to be more interesting than the current one because after the first phase it’s not yet clear who will continue,” Ceferin said.
the invasion of Russia
Another difficult challenge that UEFA has to face is how to proceed in the face of Russia’s aggression against Ukraine, according to its president.
The expulsion of Russian clubs and the Russian national team from UEFA competitions represents a “necessary suspension of sporting neutrality” to put pressure on those who decide on war, Ceferin explained.
However, he also does not consider it positive that football punishes players, coaches and fans who are not responsible for the situation.
Russia, in the Asian Confederation?
The rumor that Russia could move to the Asian confederation comes, in Ceferin’s opinion, “from some politician and not from the Russian football federation, because that would mean taking Russian football back 100 years.”
Source: La Verdad
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