As Uefa’s delegates filed into a long, low-ceilinged room it was tempting to wonder what difference a year makes. Sava Centar in Belgrade places function ahead of form and there was little of the Parisian grandeur that adorned the governing body’s annual congress in 2024. Nor were there as many fireworks on display, although plenty of the issues that will define European football over the second half of this decade flickered persistently around the edges.
Last year’s event turned into the Aleksander Ceferin show, the Uefa president drawing a scandalised reaction by pushing through an extension to the term limits for his role before pulling the rug away by announcing he would step down in 2027 anyway. Uefa had already been rocked by the acrimonious departure of its head of football, Zvonimir Boban, and the sense was that internal posturing risked diverting focus from the real structural and existential concerns the sport continues to face.
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This time Ceferin was far less inclined to discuss his future. He would not engage when asked whether he may, after all, stand for a fourth term. Does a leader who declared himself “tired” on multiple fronts in Paris feel rejuvenated 12 months on? The mood music certainly feels different: figures who previously made little secret of their distaste for the status quo appear more on-message now and a significant number of federations are known to prefer that he stays on. There is a feeling inside Uefa that only the prospect of a plum political role in his native Slovenia could dissuade Ceferin from continuing.
If a volte-face looks on the cards, the lack of an obvious opponent remains stark. There are some who wonder out loud whether Lise Klaveness, a welcome appointee to the executive committee on Thursday, may eye the top job, although the possibility seems remote at this point. A few had floated the name of Andriy Shevchenko but the Ukraine Football Association president fell well short of the votes needed for an executive committee place, an anonymous smear campaign on the eve of the congress perhaps not helping his cause, and a meteoric political rise looks a long shot.
So perhaps, when the presidential race begins at some point in 2026, there will be only one contender. Some of the logic for continuity was evident in Belgrade, and Uefa evidently feels Ceferin has earned his corn given the £335,000 pay rise he received for 2023-24. It has been more than satisfied with the success of the new-look Champions League, even if light tweaks to the format are not entirely off the table. Delegates were treated to a presentation extolling its virtues and Ceferin, in an opening address that railed against Uefa’s critics, took aim at the “voices of doubt” he believes are trying to undermine his organisation’s work.
Uefa competitions, he said, were “harmonious symphonies”. A largely smooth Euro 2024 and a set of undeniably scintillating Nations League quarter-finals strengthen his case. The past year’s lack of soap operatics has done Ceferin no harm. Although the harsh truth is that financial and competitive inequalities within the club game, driven by a wide range of factors, are worsening, there is a smidgen of consolation in the fact a Super League appears no nearer. Although A22, agitators in chief, unveiled another plan in December its back-channel manoeuvres have yielded little. Uefa has to remain vigilant, and must still decide whether to call A22’s bluff and authorise its latest scheme, but Ceferin’s allies state confidently that these choppy waters have thus far been navigated adroitly.
They also point out that he has held a firm line on resisting Russia’s reintegration to competitive action until their war in Ukraine is over, even if his personal preference is that concessions should at least be made to their youth sides. Gianni Infantino, the Fifa president, certainly sounded in more of a hurry to move that process along in his remarks to congress. Ceferin made no attempt to mask being tired of answering the question and was even less forthcoming on the topic of Israel, who play on despite the atrocities in Gaza and find their own hand strengthened by the appointment of their FA president, Moshe Zuares, the result of strenuous continent-wide lobbying, to the executive committee.
That level of defensiveness does not always help Ceferin and there was certainly a contrast between his demeanour and that of Infantino, who used his time at the lectern to pepper the hall with a series of boosterish announcements that stole many of the headlines. Infantino has managed to pull off funding, however palatable – or otherwise – for his Club World Cup and has the backing of Donald Trump’s chaotic regime. Some observers detect wind in his sails while noting a more sullen posture in Uefa’s leadership.
Ceferin aimed barbs at Infantino regarding the absurd suggestion of a 64-team men’s World Cup in 2030 and the playing demands of this summer’s Club World Cup. Push and pull between Uefa and Fifa will intensify given the latter’s apparent intention to marginalise domestic calendars in favour of big-ticket international extravaganzas. That would be among the biggest challenges of any new Ceferin term.
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Another may be how to appear fresh, more vital and accessible in the face of disruptors such as the spate of new seven-a-side tournaments. One of them, the World Sevens Football event, will park its tanks on Uefa’s lawn during the week of the Women’s Champions League final. Perhaps in keeping with the times, these formats tend to prioritise individualism and are dissociated from the community element that still underpins traditional models. But they need taking at face value: it was semi-seriously suggested on the sidelines in Belgrade that perhaps Uefa should create its own short-form tournaments and remove the arrivistes’ sting. The effect might be that of a dad joining his kids at a nightclub.
For now, Uefa’s real-life patriarch sits securely at the helm of a tighter ship. “We do not divide but unite; we do not seize power but empower,” Ceferin told the hall. Any confirmation that he will willingly relinquish his own authority must wait.
