Aleksander Čeferin exclusive: Europe has gone too far, freedom of speech is gone

We caught up with Aleksander Čeferin at the start of the Champions League knockout round, which have undergone a drastic update this season. The President of the UEFA told us a lot about football, and even more about politics and geopolitical changes in the world, because he is an active citizen of the European Union and likes to express his opinion. He cannot hide his disappointment with current European politics and the political moves that have brought the EU to a completely irrelevant position in terms of decision-making on important geostrategic issues.

How did you experience the reactions to the reformed UEFA Champions League?

I only heard positive responses. Initially, the focus was on the on-call critics, who appear whenever there is a change. I estimate that 99 percent of people are now satisfied with the renewed Champions League. The competition is even more unpredictable than before, nobody knew until the very last moment whether they would qualify. It's a perfect success, and the Champions League ratings are excellent. All three competitions — including the Europa and Conference League — are successful. The sponsors are delighted that smaller teams have the opportunity to participate. Now they would all like to be on board and invest even more in the UEFA competitions, and that also applies to the TV and other broadcasters who have secured coverage of the matches.

Dobro bi bilo, da bi Aleksander Čeferin kandidiral še enkrat

The media rights have been sold until 2027. It was reported that UEFA is negotiating for a new quadrennium, with a possible expansion to the US market, where the UCL final would be staged. Could you tell as more?

We've undergone a long agency selection process, and we are negotiating with the new agency Relevent for the future sale of TV rights and sponsorships of our club competitions. They have not discussed moving the Champions League finals to another continent. I am very surprised that some media outlets that consider themselves to be respectable can publish information without asking for UEFA's opinion. I probably would have known if we had negotiated it. And if I were not allowed to tell you, I would say I am not allowed to tell you, but I can say that they have not spoken a word about it.

How did the club presidents of Bayern, PSG, Real and ManCity, who were trembling to qualify (directly) for the round of 16, experience the last moments of the Champions League regular season?

Let me answer by giving an example. I was at the PSG — Manchester City match. At 0:2, my friend Nasser Al-Khelaifi told me that he didn't know if he would continue working in football, because of all the stress he was going through. After the final score of 4:2, my other friend, Manchester City president Khaldoon Al Mubarak, looked very unwell, and I felt really bad for him … Football is not easy; you can do everything right and yet things turn out differently. But something else pleases me: even those I have seen trembling are excited about the new Champions League format.

You have in a way prolonged the uncertainty by three months; prior to the reform, we would often have known the play-off participants as early as November.

Or even worse, right after the draw! Now there are no more home and away matches in the regular season. You need to score as many goals as possible. Dinamo Zagreb was eliminated after receiving nine goals in Munich. The last night was crazy: with every goal scored, the leader board changed.

Since before the Second World War, it has never been as dangerous as it is now, is Mr. Čeferin affraid. FOTO: Jože Suhadolnik

Are the players really as stressed and tired as some sources suggest? For example, Olimpija will play up to 60 mathces this season. Many of their players are playing all matches and are excited about it. We are aware of players who are paid a hundred times better, but are allegedly (through their unions) not impressed. What do you think about this topic?

The schedule is completely full and there is no room for new competitions, the players are all very busy playing, probably too much. But really, it's mainly the well-paid players who are complaining. The situation is complex: clubs need more matches to pay players and coaches. If there were fewer matches, then their business would not be sustainable.

Is it possible to introduce a salary cap in Europe, as Karl-Heinz Rummenigge recently mentioned — to limit the number of matches, because you wouldn't be paying players that much?

Our lawyers have also spoken to the European Union. A hard salary cap would probably not be possible. We have already capped the percentage of revenue that the club can spend on players' salaries at 70 percent. We have plenty of clubs that can't cope with that and want at least 80 percent, so we may have to change that. Clubs should acknowledge that they need more matches if they want to pay players. Some national leagues have two cups. Are they willing to have fewer teams in the league, or one less cup? Are players willing to take a pay cut? It is a complicated debate, but one that is simplified by various “opinion makers” or coaches who like to talk more when they are doing well, and a little less when they are not. They say that UEFA and FIFA are just taking money, but UEFA puts 97 percent of its revenue back into football.

Not only the Champions League is changing, but also the environment in which UEFA operates, in which the Champions League is played and, ultimately, in which we live. Major geopolitical changes are taking place, and tectonic capital shifts can be detected every year. Who gains, and who loses, in this context — which continent or bloc?

Europe is losing out in every way (though not in football), suffocated by drastic regulation. Having said that, we cannot be at war with everyone, and we cannot preach to the whole world how things must be done, because the facts are different. Moreover, the new President of the United States is thinking of imposing tariffs, which will make the European economy even less competitive, and I cannot see any strengths in the European policy. There is no unity either, and unfortunately Europe will continue to lose – through its own fault.

What changes need to be made?

We should unite, but I don't know if that is possible. We should open up and stop regulating the market so much. No one, not even China, should be our enemy – and it isn’t –, we should treat everyone as partners. We preach to others how they should behave, but we have a problem doing exactly that ourselves.

Prepovedano bo trditi, da Ljubljanica teče proti Zagrebu in Beogradu

We may have strayed into the territory of imposed political correctness. Are people increasingly fed up with this and expect practical solutions and simple answers?

We are all fed up with political correctness. Here in the Western world, freedom of speech no longer exists. You can no longer say what you think. On one hand, there are the right-wing populists who have a simple rhetoric — migrants are taking your jobs and engaging in crime, LGBT propaganda will make families non-existent, they will destroy your children, and so on. This is such simplistic populist rhetoric that anyone can understand it. On the other hand, almost all Western mainstream politics (it is neither left- nor right-wing) and most of the mainstream media are addressing people from the intellectual and arrogant high ground.

Please elaborate.

They don't tell people to talk about it, to think that nothing will destroy their families, that migrants do indeed commit crimes, too, but they are punished like everyone else … Nobody talks to the people, nobody explains to them that people can love each other regardless of their sexual orientation, nobody explains to them that some people are uncomfortable in their own bodies … This mainstream is saying, “Don't you dare discuss this or argue with us”. No one can say what they think anymore, except stand-up comedians. That is why some people think that right-wing populists are revolutionaries opposing the mainstream. But they are not. Mainstream politics should ask itself what it is doing wrong to make all this happen. You cannot say to people to not talk about it anymore.

The UEFA President did not hide his disappointment with current European politics. FOTO: Jože Suhadolnik

As I have heard, you have also been caught up in a similar mainstream philosophy, at one of the women's football award ceremonies.

True. When I was presenting the trophy to the best coach of the women's teams, I realized that it was extremely heavy. When the selected coach came on stage to collect her trophy (she was tiny and weighed 55 kg at most), I said: “Be careful, because it's heavy.” She thanked me, and the next day there was a headline in an English media outlet: “Čeferin behaved patronizingly towards the coach just because she is a woman!”

Should politicians talk more to each other and to the people?

Of course. My wife and I have friends who live in Switzerland. They said that two girls in one of the local schools said they were identifying as cats. They sit on the floor, the other children eat at the table. Of course, they have the right to be treated as cats, but don't you think that this seems strange to the average person? Why not start talking to people? Isn't it unusual for someone who looks like a human to identify as a cat? Explanations are needed, but these days this is impossible because of the general hysteria. “I'm not talking to you, I'm not talking to him. We are at war with this, we don't like that.” Politicians, who do you think you are? I don't like many people within the football industry either, but I talk to them for the sake of the organization I lead. Politicians should talk to everyone for the sake of the country. They don't have to go on holidays with those they don't like, and neither do I.

But in this context, European politicians seem to have failed, too.

European Union representatives have argued for some time that they will not discuss an end to the war in Ukraine with Russia. Now we are in a situation where the US is talking to Russia and the same European politicians are wondering why they talk without consulting them. They should understand that there are bigger interests at stake, and they should act not for their own egos and personal grievances, but for the interests of our or any other country, or for the European Union. Their preaching to the rest of the world about how Europe is the best bothers me. Migrants in Europe are in a less than ideal situation, their human rights are not optimal, but we are lecturing the whole world about democracy …

… speaking of human rights, we can also talk about the Middle East. We know how Qatar was treated in the 2022 FIFA World Cup for allegedly doing everything wrong and not respecting any rights whatsoever. Some of it is probably true, some of it is definitely not, but it is also interesting to note the double standards that nobody is now taking into account — neither at home nor abroad. For example, in Israel, Qatar has been among the most active mediators. How do you feel about this?

I remember the mentioned media attacks. In Qatar, for example, the World Cup has changed many things for the better. However, this is certainly a typical example of the lecturing of European political populists, who do not recognize different cultures, different religions, talk about non-discrimination, nor understand that different people have different customs in different environments.

I absolutely agree with you: Qatar, a country with the same population size as Slovenia, negotiated a ceasefire with the US between Israel and the Palestinians. But no one gives them credit for that. There is a predominance of negative energy. I deeply respect the Emir of Qatar for all he has done for world peace.

Well, Africa is also “uninteresting” for us. Unfortunately, it is even worse there. In some places, values are being violated on an even lower and more primitive level, but nobody cares.

I can only agree with you. Leaving aside the crazy idea that someone would build a Riviera where 50,000 people have been killed, we can look to Congo where we have 29 years of civil war, six million people dead and a huge number of women raped every day. But the world remains silent, taking the ore and operating normally. Simultaneously with the brutal rapes and murders in Congo, we were reading daily how a well-known rich man had his house burnt down in Los Angeles. That is sad too, but try to compare it with the tragedy of Congolese people. This duality is a real problem, we are losing out because we have no sensibility. We preach, we pursue political correctness, but the reality is that we are very clear on certain wars, while we turn a blind eye to others and pretend that they do not exist for economic, political or other reasons.

Is there a difference between the Western and Slovenian mainstream, i. e. between populists on both political poles? After all, we are part of the West.

Maybe here the environment is milder than elsewhere, but again: people are fed up with being treated like fools. Since you don't understand anyway, keep quiet and keep buying stuff. I hear from both ordinary and highly intellectual people, most of whom think that everything has gone too far in Europe. We are preaching to the world about what we should do, while the big players are busy developing high technology that will economically overwhelm us.

The Chinese and Americans have been long investing in the AI, but in Europe we are only now talking about how to invest in its development. Basically, we are already behind.

Exactly. One of the UEFA sponsors was the Chinese car manufacturer BYD, which they say is way ahead of Europe's electric cars. But here, we just ban stuff and impose deadlines. The following should not be discussed either — what is more harmful to the environment, oil and petrol, or electric propulsion because of the lithium extraction and subsequent storage of batteries? Nobody clarifies, they just prohibit it. But the EU has done one great thing.

Which one?

It ordered that the bottle cap must be fastened. This is excellent. (laughs) That's a really worthwhile thing to do, if I may be sarcastic. Others are inventing high-tech that is overtaking us. We do not want to cooperate with China, although I have no idea why. We refuse to cooperate with anyone, and now the US refuses to cooperate with us. I do not know how we will manage in this situation.

You mentioned recently that the world has not been in such danger since the 1930s. Can you elaborate on this?

Since before the Second World War, it has never been as dangerous as it is now. On the one hand we have bullies as leaders, and on the other hand we have politicians who do not make any decisions, who only care about public opinion, and who are, in fact, incompetent. Kudos to the exceptions. Visionaries exist, too. We have reached a situation where some major countries can take parts of other's territory and publicly discuss what they will take and who they will attack. That's dangerous. I don't know whether European leaders, who are dealing with bottle caps, realize how dangerous the situation is and how urgently they should calmly talk to each other about everything in the interests of the European Union. They are there to protect the EU's citizens, not to serve their own interests. Europe still has the advantage of being a cultural centre that everyone wants to visit. Unfortunately, we are no longer economically competitive, and I would prefer not to waste words on taxes as well.

Europeans are preaching to the world about what we should do, while the big players are busy developing high technology that will economically overwhelm us, claims Aleksander Čeferin. FOTO: Jože Suhadolnik

In a way, UEFA is breaking political taboos, too. It recently entrusted the organization of the Euro Under-21 to a joint bid by Serbia and Albania, which would be nearly unthinkable in the political sphere. Can you comment, please?

I have a special fondness for all nations of the former Yugoslavia. The last decades have been very sad. But the whole Western Balkans is a ticking time bomb. The main problem is that their leaders are talking to European bureaucrats who do not understand the mindset of the Balkans, the former Yugoslavia, Albania and other countries. Interestingly, the Albanian and Serbian football associations, supported by both governments, have expressed their desire to organize the competition together, further proof that sports are above politics. That sports are something good. This is a great opportunity to show that football is above the day-to-day politics.

Similarly, UEFA has tried to reintroduce Russian U-17 footballers into its competitions. Why didn't it work?

It is a good question. First of all, these children do not participate in elections, they do not support any authority because they are minors, but more importantly, they are now certainly being brought up in a spirit of hatred and fear of children from other parts of Europe. The moment a Russian child would come lets say to Slovenia and be embraced by a Slovenian child, he would see that we are not enemies and that life will have to go on.

What went wrong?

Our proposal was brutally attacked by mainstream politics, especially by the left-wing; one of the FA's presidents even had to resign. The media started attacking UEFA and everyone backed off, saying “we would support the idea, but the governments won't let us”. In reality, they did not let the children socialize. Politics generates hatred and intolerance out of self-interest, while speaking out against it. Those who speak out against racism are the biggest racists. Those who seem to be the most aggressive advocates of non-discrimination, those who do not let anyone speak out about a different point of view, those hurt the discriminated the most. What we are seeing now — after these aggressive acts of mainstream politics — is a win for the right-wing parties, and it is the discriminated who will be in the worst position.

Since you move to Switzerland, you have met of a lot of politicians and similar figures during the matches. Which are the greatest football fans or the ones who have made the biggest football impression on you?

Starting with the politicians, Viktor Orbán, Aleksandar Vučić, Keir Starmer, Angela Merkel are all great football fanatics. King Felipe of Spain is a passionate fan, his father Juan Carlos is an even bigger football fan, and Prince William is the most knowledgeable of them all, being a big fan of Aston Villa and the English national team. He was seriously affected in the last two Euro finals and I felt very sorry for him. But I was most impressed by the Emir of Qatar, who is a great football fan and a great man. I've been to his house once, he watches three leagues at a time on several screens, and he also discreetly attends matches. I met him when a man in jeans and a T-shirt came up to me and said: “Hello, I'm the Emir of Qatar, is there any problem with PSG?” I must not forget Pope Francis (the UEFA president pointing to a joint photograph which reads 'Papa de Roma, Papa del Futbol'), who is a great football fan. We only talk about football, and you can really notice how his look changes. Chinese billionaire Jack Ma is also special.

How so?

He loves football, and he has an extraordinary vision. I hope he is wrong, but he told me this at a meeting: first we have the disease (Covid-19), then there will be wars, and finally there will be a great famine.

What do you think about the €1 billion allegedly offered by the Saudis to Vinicius to sign a contract with them?

I take this as seriously as the rumours that the Champions League will be held abroad. I don't know if this is true. It is a huge figure that has no financial basis, but that is the Saudis' decision, if it is true of course.

Did the Spanish footballer Rodri deserve to win the Ballon d'Or?

Absolutely. Rodri was the soul of the Spanish national team that won Euro 2024 and the soul of Manchester City, which has won practically everything in recent years. He scores fewer goals than the strikers and may therefore be less visible to the average person, but the experts appreciate him. About 100 journalists voted, after all, and that is a big number. That said, Rodri is a cultured, modest and friendly guy, which is not insignificant as well. I found out he was going to win the Ballon d'Or on the day of the event, because they deliberately keep it a secret. Nobody else at UEFA knew either.

You have met many players and coaches. What is José Mourinho like outside of football? You have publicly addressed each other several times …

José Mourinho is a great man. He is unique when he is on the field. His real image gets a bit blurred because he becomes so different on the pitch, but in reality he is a wonderful person. We have a very good relationship. During the Covid-19 pandemic, he himself delivered food to retirement homes across London. Mourinho is a very interesting man, and we communicate extremely well.

How did you get along with Zlatan Ibrahimović during the filming of the video for the new Champions League?

It was very entertaining, sometimes even hilarious. Zlatan was born in Sweden, but he has a totally Balkan mentality. He is anything but arrogant. He is extremely kind, but not only to me: he signed autographs for a hundred, two hundred children at the humanitarian match in Ljubljana. He is much more patient with children than anyone else. He's also very witty, so filming was fun. I didn't know it was so difficult to make such short videos. We shot for eight hours, now I respect actors a little more. It is a constant “repeat, go slower, speak quieter, smile a little, but not too much”. It's difficult. I believe the result is quite a nice video clip.

I would like to ask you a question on basketball. The world sports community is buzzing about Luka Dončić's move from Dallas to Los Angeles, after his club sold him to the Lakers without his knowledge. Is something similar possible in football?

It was shocking to me, too, and in my opinion, it was also unwise. The fact that Luka knew nothing about the move is grossly unfair to him, even if we put aside the fact that they did him a favour by sending him to the Los Angeles Lakers, a club that has much more recognition than Dallas. That cannot happen in football, though. Even a local football club from Grosuplje, NK Brinje, can't even loan (loan!) a player to another club without the player's consent, let alone sell, and that's the way it works in all football levels — I think that's the way it should be.