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Uefa faces mounting threats no matter when Aleksander Ceferin leaves top job | Nick Ames

13-Feb-2024 08:00:36 | Guardian

European football’s governing body is navigating multiple challenges and the looming race to lead the organisation from 2027 will not help

Perhaps it was fitting that Aleksander Ceferin chose Paris for a hall of mirrors show, just a dozen miles from the real thing in Versailles, but the consequences of last Thursday’s events may be far from illusory. The Uefa president’s dramatic announcement that he did not, after all, plan to run for an unprecedented fourth term was timed in part to wrongfoot his doubters but served only to amplify questions about the governing body’s future.

Had Ceferin not decided to press for an alteration to Uefa’s term limits there would have been little discussion at this point around the election of a new leader in 2027. It had been a given that this was his time to step down. Perhaps the Slovenian, emerging from a succession of controversies, might have been able to build on the more constructive elements of his reign and depart on a relative high.