Slovenia’s Ceferin elected President of UEFA to replace disgraced Platini

“First and foremost, I will look to change to the UEFA statutes to include term-mandate limitations for the president and UEFA executive committee”, Ceferin said, as quoted by ESPN. He also provided a lot more policy detail than Ceferin, who spoke more to the room’s heart than head.

The Congress starts at 0700 GMT and the result could be known by 0900 GMT.On top of overcoming the scandal of losing Platini, the new leader will have to confront discontent over reforms to the Champions League from 2018 that will see England, Germany, Italy and Spain guaranteed four clubs in the main contest each season.

The European Professional Football Leagues (EPFL) last week vented their anger at the revamp of the Champions League and Europa League.

The 48-year-old is confident a resolution can be reached with clubs and is determined to restore a strong sense of leadership to the organisation, who have been without a permanent leader since the departure of Michel Platini in May. “He wanted to do it his way and I wanted to do it my way and today democracy has spoken”.

Ceferin only emerged in worldwide sports in June when he announced his bid to become UEFA president with the backing of over a dozen European associations ranging from Russian Federation to Scandinavian countries.

But in the world of football governance things are rarely straightforward.

“It is, by any measure, a meteoric rise to power”.

Aleksander Ceferin of Slovenia has been elected as the new president of Uefa at a meeting of European football’s governing body in Athens.

Some leagues have also acknowledged they have held contacts with China’s Wanda group, a top Federation Internationale de Football Association sponsor as well as holder of a major stake in Atletico Madrid, on a possible rival to the Champions League.

“This will be a thorny task”.

He has said UEFA must make sure the big clubs do not form a breakaway league and tackle the gap between the rich clubs and the rest, although he realises this will not be easy.

However, he was also quickly backed by larger countries including Italy, France, Germany, Ireland and Russian Federation.

The Frenchman, who resigned in May after being banned from the sport for four years for ethics violations, was given a round of applause by the delegates last night, Australian time, but did not get a standing ovation after his seven-minute speech.

Clarke, who replaced Greg Dyke as FA chairman earlier this summer, said: “I don’t think so”. “I am continuing to fight legally”.

“I have a clear conscience,”he said”.

“You are going to continue this lovely mission without me, for reasons that I do not wish to come back on”.

However the ethics committee, in a freaky ruling last week, had cleared Platini to give what was virtually a keynote speech at the address of congress.

Both Platini and Blatter, however, refused all allegations levelled against them and had their bans reduced to six years by FIFA’s Appeal Committee in February.