UEFA president Aleksander Ceferin yesterday hit out at criticism of Paris Saint-Germain and defended clubs who threaten football’s traditional elite, pointedly telling that “things change” in an interview ahead of this weekend’s Champions League final.
Real Madrid and Liverpool meet in the final for the second time in five years in Paris today, with the Spanish club looking to put their disappointment at missing out on the signature of Kylian Mbappe by winning a record-extending 14th European Cup.
Mbappe had long been expected to sign for Real before agreeing a new three-year contract at PSG, prompting La Liga president Javier Tebas to call the French club “an insult to football”. But Ceferin, president of European football’s governing body since 2016, encouraged Tebas to mind his own business. “I absolutely don’t agree” with the criticism, he said, speaking in the French capital.
“There are anyway too many insults in football, and I think that every league should worry about their own situation.”
PSG, whose president Nasser al-Khelaifi is chairman of the influential European Club Association and sits on the UEFA Executive Committee, have changed the landscape of football on the continent in the last decade, along with Abu-Dhabi-owned Manchester City.
The irony is that neither club has yet managed to win the Champions League, and both were knocked out of this season’s competition by Real Madrid.
The Spanish club will win their fifth Champions League in nine seasons if they beat Liverpool, but the feeling is that it will only be a matter of time before PSG or Manchester City claim the prize. Both have been accused of breaching UEFA financial fair play rules in the past, although those rules were recently relaxed.
Clubs can now report losses of 60mn euros ($64.3mn) over three years, double the previous limit, while spending on wages, transfers and agents fees will be limited to 70 percent of total revenues by 2025. “We have clear rules, whoever obeys the rules can play our competitions, the others will not,” Ceferin said. “Things change. You cannot say ‘I’m a traditional club, I have to win until the end of history’.”
Ceferin, a 54-year-old Slovenian lawyer, could be forgiven for regretting the fact that the latest Champions League final will be between two of the 12 clubs who last year tried to break away to form a Super League. Liverpool quickly backed out of the project, but Real stand by it along with Barcelona and Juventus. The trio still face potential punishment from UEFA as a result.
Manchester City’s Erling Braut Haaland throws a small football signed by him into the crowd during his unveiling in Manchester yesterday. (Reuters)
