Ceferin to Stand for Fourth Term as Uefa President

European football's governing body is set for four more years under its current leadership after Aleksander Ceferin told the continent's football chiefs he will stand for a fourth term as UEFA president. The announcement, made to the presidents and general secretaries of all 55 national associations at a meeting in Berlin on Thursday, reverses the Slovenian's firm insistence in February 2024 that he would not seek re-election — and cements UEFA's confrontational posture toward FIFA.

The 58-year-old, first elected in 2016, confirmed he will stand at the 51st UEFA Ordinary Congress in Astana, Kazakhstan, on April 22. A successful re-election would extend his presidency through 2031, making him one of the longest-serving leaders in the organisation's history.

A dramatic reversal

Ceferin's change of course is striking because of how emphatic his earlier position was. After controversial changes to UEFA's presidential term limits were voted through at the 2024 Congress in Paris — changes the Football Association opposed — Ceferin declared that he would not be standing again in any case, saying he had made up his mind six months previously to step away when his third term ended in 2027.

UEFA said on Thursday that over the previous months the 55 national associations had unanimously asked Ceferin to reconsider. In a statement, he thanked the associations for their trust: "We have faced extraordinary challenges over the past years, and we have faced them as one team." He said there was still important work ahead and that he had accepted their request to stand again.

He added: "My ambition remains the same: to keep European football united."

!UEFA headquarters in Nyon, Switzerland UEFA headquarters in Nyon, Switzerland. Credit: Florian Pépellin / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0)

Europe's fight with FIFA escalates

The announcement came as UEFA's national associations intensified their push for change at world football's governing body. UEFA issued a statement declaring that its members had lost confidence in the current FIFA leadership and publishing a 14-point reform plan, Reuters reported.

The reform package, approved by UEFA and 54 of its 55 national associations — Azerbaijan excepted — targets the heart of FIFA's governance. It calls for removing presidential and executive interference from ethics oversight, banning the use of FIFA resources for personal or electoral purposes, and distributing at least $10m (£7.5m) in additional funding to each of FIFA's 211 member associations.

The funding demand, which UEFA developed alongside CONCACAF, would see roughly $2.1bn released from FIFA's reserves for infrastructure and football development over the 2027–30 cycle — a one-off release over and above the existing FIFA Forward programme, and another sign of how money now drives the business of world sport. The proposal is expected to be examined when the FIFA Council meets on October 15.

The confrontation has been building for months. Ceferin has been vocal in his opposition to Infantino since it emerged in July that the FIFA president was working on a plan to seek private investment in a company to manage the commercial interests of FIFA's tournaments, including the men's and women's World Cups. That proposal has since been withdrawn, but the political damage has endured — and the fallout continues to reshape how the world game is governed.

Infantino under pressure

UEFA's statement pulled no punches about its view of the FIFA presidency: "The national associations reiterated that they have lost confidence in the current FIFA leadership," it said. "Institutional reform will not, on its own, be enough. FIFA also needs new leadership: a respected and unifying figure, deeply rooted in football, with the vision and experience to lead, the ability to command confidence across regions and an unequivocal commitment to development, reform, integrity and independence."

Infantino has confirmed he will stand for re-election in March 2027, despite the backlash. He has responded to the funding row by backing an assessment of how much additional funding FIFA can responsibly distribute, while insisting that no association's treatment will depend on its position on governance matters.

Ceferin, for his part, has already ruled himself out of the FIFA race. He said in August he would not stand against Infantino — a position that removes the most high-profile potential challenger from the field but allows him to position UEFA as the institutional counterweight to the FIFA presidency from his own power base in Nyon.

A challenger emerges

One figure has stepped forward. Former Switzerland defender Ramon Vega, who played for Tottenham Hotspur among other clubs, said on Wednesday that he intends to stand in next year's FIFA election against Infantino, becoming the first person to publicly declare his intention to challenge the incumbent ahead of the November 18 deadline.

Whether Vega — or any other candidate — can build the coalition needed to unseat Infantino remains an open question. FIFA's 211 member associations elect the president, and Infantino retains significant support, including from the 2034 World Cup hosts Saudi Arabia, African football's CAF and South America's CONMEBOL.

What happens next

Attention now turns to two dates. The first is October 15, when the FIFA Council meets and the funding proposal — along with Infantino's proposed independent review of FIFA's governance — will face formal scrutiny. The second is April 22, when UEFA's Congress in Astana will almost certainly confirm Ceferin for a fourth term, given the unanimous backing he claims from the national associations. ESPN's analysis notes that a further four years of Ceferin brings certainty to UEFA even as its institutional war with FIFA deepens.

For European football, the stakes go beyond one presidency. The past decade under Ceferin has seen the game navigate a pandemic, a failed Super League breakaway and now an open dispute with Zurich over how world football should be run — positions each side sets out in UEFA's statements and FIFA's governance pages. The Football Association's stance on governance remains a reference point for the English game. Verity will continue to follow the story across our sports coverage and on the homepage, guided by our editorial standards for institutional disputes of this kind.