{"id":26493,"date":"2026-08-06T19:05:00","date_gmt":"2026-08-06T14:05:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pakjazbo.com\/?p=26493"},"modified":"2026-08-06T19:05:12","modified_gmt":"2026-08-06T14:05:12","slug":"uefa-chief-ceferin-underdog-leader-taking-fight-to-fifas-infantino","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pakjazbo.com\/?p=26493","title":{"rendered":"UEFA chief Ceferin: ‘Underdog’ leader taking fight to FIFA’s Infantino"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

UEFA president Aleksander Ceferin says one of his mantras is to \u201cchoose your battles\u201d, but European football\u2019s governing body is now locked in a bitter fight with FIFA boss Gianni Infantino.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ceferin has previously called himself an \u201cunderdog\u201d leader, despite having been at the helm of UEFA since 2016 and pushed through a statute change which will allow him to run for a fourth term next year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One battle the 58-year-old Slovenian appears ready to sit out is as a challenger to Infantino, who is seeking a fourth and final term as FIFA president in Rabat next March.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNo,\u201d he told Politico last September when asked if he was considering standing for the FIFA presidency.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Infantino is under severe pressure for the first time, in part due to UEFA\u2019s reaction to his scrapped private investor plan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ceferin would be a crucial ally to any potential challenger to Infantino.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

UEFA\u2019s threat to boycott the World Cup if Infantino pushed through his proposals arguably led to the Swiss\u2019s humiliating climbdown in ditching the plan last Saturday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Terrence Burns, who served as brand and marketing strategist for two successful World Cup host bids, believes Ceferin emerged a big winner from the fall-out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cCeferin played it well,\u201d Burns told AFP.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cUEFA carried the fight collectively while he issued no personal statement at any point.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe boycott threat was aggressive and credible, which is a rare pairing.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ceferin served in the Yugoslav Army in the 1980s, before also being called up by the Slovenian forces during their War of Independence in 1991.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cLuckily I never had to shoot (anybody),\u201d he once told ESPN.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ceferin, like Infantino a lawyer by profession, will hope he has picked the right moment for his latest battle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI think you should in professional and private life, choose your battles,\u201d he told Politico last year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou should fight when it\u2019s really a reason to fight, but every fight is tiring.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Pressures and threats\u2019 <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Last week brought to a head tensions between UEFA and FIFA that had surfaced during the World Cup.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ceferin boycotted the World Cup final last month in protest, largely over the controversy surrounding US striker Folarin Balogun\u2019s red card in their last-32 win over Bosnia and Herzegovina.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

FIFA stepped in and suspended Balogun\u2019s ban, freeing him to play against Belgium in the last 16.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The decision led to widespread condemnation, especially when it emerged US President Donald Trump had intervened by calling Infantino.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The successful taking down of the investment plan is not the first time Ceferin and UEFA have played a pivotal role in confronting FIFA under Infantino and won.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Their opposition \u2014 along with South American confederation CONMEBOL \u2014 ultimately forced Infantino in 2021 to scrap the idea of holding the World Cup every two years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ceferin also turned his fire effectively on the European Super League when it was launched in April, 2021.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He was so angry about the failed breakaway, he called then-Juventus chairman Andrea Agnelli \u201ca snake\u201d, even though he was godfather to the Italian\u2019s daughter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI didn\u2019t sleep, eat or drink for 48 hours, because I had phone calls with governments and royal families\u2026 and pressures and threats,\u201d he said in 2021.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ceferin and UEFA, despite the quick collapse of the ESL, still felt obliged to reform their showpiece club competition, the Champions League.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ceferin has had bumps in the road during his tenure since first being elected 10 years ago.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A UEFA statute change introduced in 2024 did not completely erase the three-term limit for the presidency, but stipulated terms started or served before July 1, 2017 should not be taken into account.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That paved the way for Ceferin to seek a fourth term next year, drawing criticism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It sparked the resignation of Croatian football great Zvonimir Boban as UEFA\u2019s chief of football.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIronically, it was the UEFA president himself that proposed and launched a set of reforms in 2017 which were introduced to prevent such a possibility,\u201d said Boban.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe reforms were to football\u2019s great credit, and that of the UEFA president. His shift away from these values is beyond comprehension.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ceferin\u2019s next goal will be to prevent Infantino, who was re-elected unopposed in 2019 and 2023, from winning his own fourth term in charge of FIFA.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

UEFA president Aleksander Ceferin says one of his mantras is to \u201cchoose your battles\u201d, but European football\u2019s governing body is now locked in a bitter fight with FIFA boss Gianni Infantino. Ceferin has previously called himself an \u201cunderdog\u201d leader, despite having been at the helm of UEFA since 2016 and pushed through a statute change […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":26494,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","inline_featured_image":false,"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"no","rop_publish_now_accounts":{"facebook_3859443944190656_798604363342440":""},"rop_publish_now_history":[{"account":"facebook_3859443944190656_798604363342440","service":"facebook","timestamp":1786025156,"status":"success"}],"rop_publish_now_status":"done","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26493","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakjazbo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26493","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakjazbo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakjazbo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakjazbo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakjazbo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=26493"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/pakjazbo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26493\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26495,"href":"https:\/\/pakjazbo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26493\/revisions\/26495"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakjazbo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/26494"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakjazbo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=26493"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakjazbo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=26493"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakjazbo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=26493"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}