Newly elected UEFA President Aleksander Čeferin has risen from obscurity to the peak of football power in record time. But did he have the necessary credentials when he became president of the Slovenian Football Association in 2011?
By Pål Ødegård, Håvard Melnæs and Andreas Selliaas
As Josimar revealed in our article leading up to the election in Athens, there are indeed something odd about his curriculum vitae in football politics. A week before the UEFA Presidential election, Aleksander Čeferin didn’t even have a Wikipedia entry in his own language, nor any other. These have suddenly emerged in the last couple of days in various languages – Slovenian, English and Spanish. They are pure copies of Čeferin’s profile on uefa.com, however, which lists him as a ‘member’ of NK Olimpija Ljubljana since 2006. The reason this is relevant is that according to our sources, in 2011 when Čeferin was elected, the election rules of the Slovenian FA stated that you needed five years of boardroom experience in football. The only available hands-on rules, though, are the ratified regulations from 2012, which state that, for a President or a Vice President to be eligible, they need at least three years boardroom experience.
Despite extensive efforts, Josimar have never been able to confirm the 5 years experience requirements in article 3 of the Slovenian FA’s election regulations (The Slovenian FA wouldn’t return our calls, nor answer our emails).
This is the UEFA-profile of Aleksander Čef...
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