Ceferin blasts Madrid and Barça: “They say they want to save football...”

UEFA president Aleksander Ceferin attacked the breakaway clubs who are keen to set up a Super League, comparing them to the big bad wolf in the Little Red Riding Hood story. Ceferin addressed the UEFA Congress in Lisbon today, moments before being re-elected for four more years. He will remain as head of European football’s governing body until 2027. “We must never forget how beautiful football is. How it stirs our emotions, how it keeps hundreds of millions of people on the edge of their seats, how football defines who we are,” he began. “European football, I can say, is a unique story - it’s a success story, a microcosm of our life”.

He had strong words for the clubs supporting the Super League, a proposal which caused him no end of headaches during his last term of office. Ceferin’s opening words were aimed directly at Real Madrid, Barcelona and Juventus - the principal advocates of the Super League.

“We must never forget how fragile football is. Over the last few years we have seen the European football landscape change beyond all recognition. Clubs have been bought up by investment funds, local identities have been lost and expenditure has gone through the roof. We are faced with galloping globalisation,” he said.

“There have been temptations and even attempts to create new models but they conflict with the European model that we know so well and cherish so dearly. We must never forget that we have a duty to ensure that the interests of football prevail over the private interests of a handful of privileged individuals. I am not going to go into the details of the ill-fated plan put forward by the three clubs. But still, those who promote this project, are now claiming that they want to save football - they want to save football... It’s really great that nobody has died of shame. In the space of a few months the Super Leagie has turned into a character in Little Red Riding Hood. A wolf disguised as a grandmother ready to eat you up. Is anybody fooled? I don’t think so”.

He continued, “My friends, jealously was never a good counsellor. A few months ago, a year ago, UEFA and its club competitions was being blamed for all the evils in football and inequalities with the leagues. Today, it seems that the English Premier League that seems to be under attack. should be overthrown. Since the British government, supporters and clubs said no to the Super League, the Premier League has been demonised and labelled a Super League in its own right that needs to be toppled. However, the Premier League’s success was not achieved by accident. By adopting an audacious approach based on vision, strategy and a lot of hard work, its leaders and clubs developed a remarkable model, founded on a sporting merit and a highly egalitarian distribution of wealth. Rather than a model to be destroyed, it is a model that should be followed I would say. And let me reassure those who say that English clubs will crush everything that stands in its way. In the last 20 years, the Champions League has been won on five occasions by English clubs - only twice in the last decade…”

Opposing world views

In another undeviating reference to Madrid, Barça and Juventus, and their determination to create a Super League, Ceferin concluded. “We must explode the myth that the privatisation of football is an unstoppable process. Here, we have two opposing world views - we have cynicism over morality, selfishness over solidarity, greed over benevolence, self absorption over openness to others. Self interest against altruism, shameful lies over the truth, cartels over meritocracy and democracy, stock prices over sporting merit... the quest for profit over the quest for trophies. If there is one thing that we should never forget, it’s that nobody must think that football is not the sport of the people. Football is and will always stay the sport of the people”.