The Football Association stood alone in showing the red card to changes in UEFA’s rules which will allow Aleksander Ceferin the option of standing for a further four-year term as president from 2027.
FA chief executive Mark Bullingham was the sole national federation delegate to hold up a red card rejecting the amendments at the UEFA Congress in Paris, but the motion passed with 49 of the 55 associations holding up a green card in support.
The amendment would mean Ceferin’s partial first term, which began in September 2016, would not count towards the three-term limit, allowing him the possibility of a further term between 2027 and 2031.
UEFA president Aleksander Čeferin kicks off his #UEFACongress speech in Paris:
"This year, UEFA is celebrating its 70th birthday. Seventy years of history, tradition, passion, unity, courage and creativity cannot simply be brushed away – especially when the most exciting… pic.twitter.com/nCKYpP4ZaJ
— UEFA (@UEFA) February 8, 2024
The FA, along with Norway and Iceland, had sought to break up the bundle of rule amendments, because it wholeheartedly supports most of the measures proposed including an increase in minimum female representation on the UEFA executive committee from one to two.
However, a decision was taken to vote for the amendments as a package, forcing the FA to vote against the term limit amendment as a matter of principle, rather than a vote against Ceferin himself.
Explaining the vote, an FA spokeswoman said: “We were supportive of the statute changes proposed by UEFA, with the exception of one – the proposed new wording on term limits for Article 69.3.
“On Article 69.3, we believe that it was always intended that a principle of three terms of four years should be a maximum period for any UEFA Exco member to serve.
“We have recently implemented governance changes of our own and think it’s important that we are consistent in our approach.
“We requested and voted for the statute changes to be tabled separately, but this was not supported by a sufficient majority and we respect that. We support all the other statute changes tabled at Congress but, because they were tabled in a single bundle, we have voted against all of them, given our opposition to Article 69.3.”
In his opening speech to Congress, Ceferin said: “My daughter actually told me: ‘Father, sometimes I think you are a character from The Lord of the Rings’. But I’m not. I’m not interested in the ring.”
In the JRR Tolkien books, the One Ring gives power to its wearer to rule over all those who wore the other rings.
He added: “The ancient Romans said ‘Whatever you do, do it wisely’. We should all work that direction, then life would be much easier.”