Calacus Weekly Hit & Miss – UEFA's Ceferin & Real Madrid's Perez
Every Monday we look at the best and worst communicators in the sports world from the previous week.
HIT – UEFA PRESIDENT ALEKSANDER CEFERIN
It’s fair to say that UEFA, European football’s governing body, does not have the greatest reputation.
They’ve been seen to be soft on racism with lenient fines that seem to do little to deter racist behaviour by players or their fans and even punishing those who are subject to abuse, such as Glasgow Rangers’ Glen Kamara.
It speaks volumes about the disaster which was the European Super League (ESL), which threatened to disrupt football as we know it across Europe, that UEFA has come out of the saga with its reputation enhanced.
We’ve written in detail about the communications lessons that can be learned from the ESL and the way in which the chaotic and poorly planned public relations activity made a terrible concept even worse.
But it is Ceferin who comes out of the affair with his reputation enhanced despite the challenges he faced.
According to some reports, Ceferin, had been assured by his close friend Andrea Agnelli, Juventus President, European Clubs Association (ECA) chairman and a member of UEFA’s Executive Committee, that talk of a breakaway was just “a rumour.”
The pair were so close that Ceferin was godfather to Agnelli’s youngest child, but when the Italian stopped answering his phone as the ESL story gathered pace, Ceferin knew something was wrong.
When the ESL launch announcement was made on Sunday evening, the UEFA President set to work.
He contacted senior members of the ECA, key stakeholders, to appraise them of the situation and started rallying potential allies, including FIFA President Gianni Infantino and state leaders including Emmanuel Macron and Boris Johnson.
He gave a speech on Monday, when the UEFA Executive Committee had met, tapping into the fears and suspicions of football fans around the world and setting his stall against the ESL clubs and organisers rather than admitting defeat.
Ceferin said: “I cannot stress more strongly at the moment that UEFA and the football world stand together alongside this disgraceful, self-serving project from a select few clubs in Europe fuelled by greed above all else.
“This idea is a spit in the face of all football lovers and our society as well. We must not let them take [football] away from us. I have seen many things in my life, I was a criminal lawyer for 24 years. I've seen many people. I've never seen anyone like that.
"We didn't know we had snakes working close to us, but now we know. Super League is only about money, money of the dozen, I don't want to call them dirty dozen, but UEFA is about developing football, and about financing what should be financed, that our football, our culture survives, and some people don't understand it.
"We have the English FA, Spanish Federation, Italian Federation, the Premier League, La Liga, Serie A and FIFA, unanimous in opposition to these cynical plans which are completely against what football should be. We are all united against this nonsense of a project."
While many still expected the ESL to continue regardless, Ceferin had mobilised the football world against the defectors and reminded everyone else that if they also joined the betrayal, the punishments would be harsh.
It was the speech of a leader, but perhaps Ceferin’s later words spoke even more to his status as one of the most powerful but fair leaders in football.
Instead of turning the screw on the rebel clubs, he offered an olive branch, seeking to engage rather than confront those who had betrayed UEFA.
“I would like to address the owners of some English clubs,” Ceferin said during his powerful address last Tuesday.
“Gentlemen, you made a huge mistake. Some will say it is greed, others disdain, arrogance, flippancy, complete ignorance of England’s football culture. But actually it doesn’t matter.
“What matters is there is still time to change your mind, everyone makes mistakes. English fans deserve to have you correct your mistake, they deserve respect.“
His words were perfectly positioned, encouraging a change of mind from the ESL clubs and tapping into the concerns of the fans who felt disrespected by the proposals by discussing greed and selfishness as well as the cultural importance of football across Europe.
“Football can start or stop wars,” Ceferin told Slovenian TV. “Football can trigger extraordinary social shifts and I was convinced that, especially in England, fans will not cave in.”
It was enough to start the collapse, with Manchester City and Chelsea the first clubs to drop out of the ESL, followed by the rest of the English clubs and then those in Italy.
Ceferin could have rested on his laurels, basking in the glory of a victory over the might of the most powerful clubs in European football, but he continued to push his agenda.
He later admitted that he would work with the national football federations and other governing bodies and stakeholders to ensure safeguards were put in place to prevent further threats in future.
"We agreed …to connect with the football federations, the national associations and leagues that are concerned. We will do that next week and we'll see. It would be good that we can see what specific leagues can do, and what the federations can do, and what UEFA can do.
“Let’s see. Everyone has to take consequences for what they did and we cannot pretend nothing happened. You cannot do something like that and just say: “I’ve been punished because everybody hates me.” They don’t have problems because of anyone else but themselves. It’s not OK what they did and we will see in next few days what we have to do.”
One thing the ESL has proved is the power of fans and the world of football to address the challenges the ESL presented.
And keeping them onside was a wise communications move from Ceferin, particularly in the light of concerns supporters have had with UEFA in the past.
“Look, honestly speaking I was completely impressed by the reaction of the fans, the whole football community and not just the football community but I would say society. I never seen this,” said Ceferin.
“UEFA did its part, the clubs that stood with us did their part. And of course the UK Government out of all did the big part. But by far the biggest part was done by fans.
“This joint effort showed that not everything is for sale, that you cannot come with billions and say: “I don’t care about tradition, history the things that you love, because I have enough money I will buy all.” No way! It doesn’t go through.”
And while UEFA’s own reputation has its critics, Ceferin went even further, vowing to fight racism with the same vigour he fought the rebel ESL clubs.
Later in the week he said: “We don’t want racism in football. We don’t want sexism, homophobia, any discrimination. And we will fiercely fight it.
“We can do it. The sanctions for racism, for example, can be the same. We can forbid them to play our competition. We can do that. We are ready to do any sanction and you know well that we discuss that many times. We are committed to doing it. And I think we are improving. It’s not an easy fight but we will do whatever we can.”
MISS – FLORENTINO PEREZ
Real Madrid are the most successful club in European Cup/Champions League history with 13 wins in the competition.
They are renowned for fielding some of the world’s greatest players, often making big name signings that excite their huge fanbase and see them competing at the top of La Liga and for the top European honours.
Those big name signings, of course, cost a lot of money, which Madrid have not had as much of since the Covid-19 lockdowns prevented fans attending matches in person and their stadium underwent vital refurbishment.
Some reports suggest that Real Madrid have lost up to £300m over the past year alone.
It became clear during the course of the ESL debacle that their President, Florentino Perez, was the ringleader of the plans to defect from UEFA to a new competition.
The initial ESL statement confirmed that Perez was the project’s first chairman and quoted him as saying: “We will help football at every level and take it to its rightful place in the world. Football is the only global sport in the world with more than four billion fans and our responsibility as big clubs is to respond to their desires.”
Those comments were laughable, given the fact that the majority fans of every single club including the original ESL founder members, were against the plans and saw them as a way for the big clubs, Madrid included, to keep a bigger proportion of competition prize money than they have done already.
In an interview with the TV programme El Chiringuito, Perez said that young people are not engaged in football and that the games may need to be shorter to maintain their attention spans.
He said: “Football has to change and it has to adapt. We have to analyse why young people, 16-to-24-year-olds, 40% of them aren't interested in football. Why? Because there are a lot of low-quality games, and they have other entertainment platforms.
"They say the games are too long. We have to change something if we want football to stay alive. If young people don't watch an entire game, it's because it isn't interesting enough, or we'll have to shorten the games ... There are matches that even I can't watch all of them, to be honest."
When Chelsea fans made their feelings known with a protest ahead of their home game against Brighton, Perez claimed that it was part of an orchestrated attempt to derail the plans rather than genuinely help views by the hundreds in attendance.
He said: "Chelsea fans? They were 40 people outside Stamford Bridge ... and if you want, I will tell you who took them there. Who took Chelsea fans at Stamford Bridge are the same people who put those anti-Super League shirts on Cadiz tonight."
His comments were roundly ridiculed but even with only three founding members remaining (Madrid, Barcelona and Juventus), Perez remained defiant that the ESL would return, ignoring the global mood or reaction in order to persist with his plans.
He even said that the project was just “on hold” with all 12 clubs bound by contractual agreements. He said: "I don't need to explain what a binding contract is, but effectively the clubs cannot leave.
"Some of them, due to pressure, have said they're leaving. But this project, or one very similar, will move forward and I hope very soon.
“We are going to continue working. We are looking for ways of getting this done. It would be a shame not to get it done,” Perez said.
“I've been in football for 20 years and I've never seen threats like this. It was like we killed someone. It was like we killed football. But we were trying to work out how to save football."
UEFA and the global football family may well disagree.