The Man Taking On Infantino: UEFA President Aleksander Čeferin

Thanks for listening to The Restisted Politics. Sign up to The Restisted Politics Plus to enjoy ad-free listening and receive a weekly newsletter. Join our members' chat room again early access to live show tickets. Just go to TheRestistPolitics.com. That's TheRestistPolitics.com. World Football is in real turbulence. Gianni Infantino, the President of FIFA, widely criticized for getting far too close to Donald Trump and other political leaders, is now facing a fight for his own survival. After you over-lead, and for now one, the fight to block his plans, part, to privatize the World Cup. My guest today is the man who is leading that fight. His name is Ali Zandicefren, and it isn't the first time he's taken on the Giants of the game. He played a similar role in stopping some of Europe's biggest clubs from forming a breakaway European super league. He's been President of UEFA, European football's governing body for 10 years, a decade during which football has become bigger, richer, a perhaps more political than ever. Unlike the flamboyant Instagram obsessed Infantino, he keeps a very low media profile. There's very few interviews, so I'm very grateful. I disagree to talk to us here in Split in Croatia, where we're both taking part in a pro-arm football match at the youth sport games. Hey parents, how do you make smarter choices for your kids' college today? That's where Sally can help. With Sally, you can find scholarships, funding options, tools, and guidance all in one place. And if you need a loan, Sally has options for different families and different situations. College is only worth it if you do it right, so don't just help your kid go, help them go smarter. Sally.com/goparents Late night bites with friends? Already hard to beat. That first two hot bite of fries you couldn't wait for, followed by ice-cold Pepsi. 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IG brings all your investing, trading, and funding together in one connected app. So you can move money, manage positions, and acts on opportunities without even switching platforms. Plus, IG charges no annual fees and zero commission on stocks, shares, and ETFs. In essence, it's a more efficient platform that also costs you less. Download the IG app and get started. IG, trade, invest, progress. Capital risk other fees may apply. I think we have to start with football. So just very, very straightforward question. Is Infantinos plan dead? Or will they try to revive it? And will Infantinos survive as president of FIFA? First of all, when you compared in the beginning, this plan with the Super League plan, I think this plan is even worse than the Super League plan. In the first case, clubs wanted to super important clubs wanted to do their own league, which is wrong, which would destroy football. But in this case, football would be literally sold. I'm absolutely sure that the plan is dead. But things get too far. Now, in football politics is sometimes even more complicated, or if you want dirty than the normal politics. So you never know what will happen in the future. But for me, the most important thing is that we stopped another try to sell the sport. I mean, it's hard to imagine what kind of people would sell the sport that belongs to everyone. So how does he survive? Then if that's what UEFA, which is probably the most important of the individual bodies in football, not probably, is the biggest, the richest, the most important. How does he survive? Because in the end, it's about votes. It is political. It's about the numbers. Tell me what you think he will be trying to do to survive, because he's clearly not going to walk, is he? Yeah. Things are changing every day. Every day, there are different discussions. I didn't speak with him, he didn't contact me since this happened. But there are two options. One option is that he realizes that he doesn't have to support. And that's not only a political support of the ones who vote, but the political support of football community, the political support of fans, the political support of the players, former players coaches. And the second option is that he goes to the elections in March. But in that case, I think he will have a candidate against him. I don't know yet who? No, I'm not interested because of two reasons. One reason is that I love UEFA and I love working here. And I think that at a certain point, you have also, I mean, it's time also to enjoy life a bit and let's see when. And the second point is microdivillity is much, much, much higher if I'm not interested in the position. And now, Sarah PSG, people talk about that as a possibility? I don't. I don't. He also says to me that he's not interested. But it's really too soon. The date is 18th of November. Let's see what happens till then. But I'm always fascinated by the power of football. You can do anything to people, but don't take football away from them. It happened in super league. It happened again. Now, unbelievable, unbelievable power of football. I mean, because the other thing is, of course, he's a European. He came from UEFA. And yet you now have 55 leads in Europe, essentially saying, you are destroying football. How does he survive that? How does he even think he survives that? I mean, elections are elections and the vote is of 211 federations. Now, what I hear is that they play on, you know, arrogant Europe is against us. They have enough money, but I help the small and the poor and stuff like that. But I think someone should remind him that he's a European and that he was supported by UEFA, which he forgot. I noticed during the World Cup, that you weren't very high profile. I think you went to Mexico, you went to Canada, you didn't go to the U.S. No, no, no. Deliberate? I felt a bit uncomfortable. I felt a bit uncomfortable because of the things that were happening with the referee, also with the Iranian national team. And honestly, the summary referee. Yes. The one that you then got to see. The summary referee and the Iranian national team and some other teams as well. And as President of UEFA, you're automatically a vice president of UEFA. Did he discuss with the vice presidents, the idea of UEFA peace prize and giving it a little trouble? No, no. I got the information about this, found diplomatic, quite a strange prize in the media. We didn't know anything. We didn't know anything about that. We didn't know anything about this program to sell football, nothing, nothing. So that says, and you say you're being diplomatic, but that says that the guy has completely lost touch or has completely lost any respect for his fellow leaders in football. Yeah, I mean, the governance at FIFA on paper is key. FIFA Council decides the main things, FIFA Congress decides, and things like that president cannot decide by himself. We have bad experience with disorganization for 100 years already. All the time, there are some problems, there are some controversies, there are some people who feel like. Why does football attract so many people? It seems to be like that. They get to the top of football. These values just seem so divorced from the people that they claim to want to help and support, but the people who love football. I mean, because of the influence of football, football is super powerful. There's a lot of mine. I think those two reasons, you know, if you are a volleyball federation president, you have much less influence. Talk me through the discussions at UEFA with the 55 associations when this plan emerged. And by the way, I've seen the full plan. It looks to me like something that Jack GPT could have put together in a few, is not even to me a thought-through plan, but it comes out at the times, and the financial times expose this, it comes out the whole world reacts to it. First of all, where were you? How did you find out? What was your reaction? Then what did you do to lead the boycott? I was on vacation with my family when I got from my colleagues what Marty Zieglem sometimes published. That was the first you knew? Yes. And then we did an internal meeting first. You should see, you know, because it's sometimes it's presented like the fight between me and him. You should see my colleagues how mad they were. They were worse than me. Colleagues in UEFA or the other federations. Both, both. And then we organized a video conference with 55 federations. And you know, they offered 40 million to federations who have 5 million budget, but If you would see that 40 out of 55 took the floor, 40 spoke it was two hours, they were so mad and one of the smaller federations because on one side was England, Germany, who you understand that they don't want that because also this money is not so big for them, but on the other side was San Marine, Cyprus, Liechtenstein, who all supported it. They said we are not for sale and one of the federation presidents said a good thing. He said this is like he would try to buy my house with my money because it's the money of federations, it's not money of FIFA president or FIFA council, it's the money of football and 75% of this money is from Europe, 75%. So what some people obviously don't understand is that it's not a private company. For example, FIFA has 6 billion reserves and they have much lower revenues than us, we have 500 million, they have 6 billion because you have to distribute, we are there to distribute, we redistribute 97% of everything that we have. You earn much more money than FIFA? Yes, I factor what? Yeah, it's like two, three times, I would say, but then you distribute more. Yes, we distribute practically everything. Show me one NGO that keeps 3%. Of course there's more money, so 3% is more than 25% if it's less money, but that was such a unanimous reaction of the federation that I was touched with, you couldn't believe that small big everybody. Give me a flavor of that, the flavor of the meeting, you're online, yes, all online. All online. And you've got 55 heads up there on the rope, putting the hands up. Yes. Just give me a flavor of the thing. Yeah, I started then, my general secretary explained the other part and to deputy general secretary and then they started to speak, they started to speak and you know you cannot teach anyone to speak like that, they were everybody spoke differently, everybody saw a different angle, but everybody was unanimous that this is shame, which for me it's great that football community is so strong and I was very positively surprised by Asian football confederation and by Gunkakaf who joined. Of course it's very important that we go out first because we can afford it. The others have a bit more of a problem because they're not, they're much, much, much, much smaller. You said the plan was dead, but let's just say hypothetically that he does survive. He gets 106 votes and he tries to revive this plan, okay. The boycott threat presumably stays if that happens. Could UEFA create a tournament to rival a world cup without UEFA? I'll try to be optimistic and say that it will never happen, but if it happens but I really doubt it will happen, everything is possible, everything is but we will not allow that to happen and now it's not anymore about the project. Do you think, it was interesting, I saw Trump in the White House who's asked about it, whether he knew about it in advance, whether Gianni had talked to about it and he basically said who, do you think the political, because what's happened to Infantina, he got too close to the fire? Do you think he's been burnt there? I mean, first I doubt that the US president knew anything about this plan. One of the cushiones was involved, which makes me think that he might have done. Yeah, I doubt, but to be honest, I think you're naive if you think that a politician like that or any politician is your good friend. At the moment you are a problem, you stop being a friend of a politician usually. What's your relationship with capital P politics? Professional, when I spoke with some of the prime ministers, they even contacted me about the super league and now about this project, they were super positive and they tried to defend football, of course. I think it would be a huge mistake for a politician not to defend the sport that everybody loves and to say, no, no, it should be sold, nobody would do that, but maybe some of them, I'm sure some of them are all songs. And tell me about the, let's go back to the super league, European super league again. How was that put together? When did you find out about that? How did you make that decision to say, we have to fight this as well? Just draw me through that whole process. I heard that they were preparing it for a year or two. You just heard all the great stuff. And we heard some rumors about it, but we didn't believe, to be honest. So we agreed with the, back then they were called ECA, now they are EFC. The clubs, we signed the new format that is now. And I thought it's a very, it will be a very easy congress in Montre in Switzerland. So I went by car eight, nine hours drive because I thought it's just something easy. I got a phone call from a friend in the US who met one of the owners of the English clubs who told him that they are preparing a super league. Then I got a phone call from another English clubs, one of the big six. The president and he told me, look, we have to be in because, or we are in or we are out. And Anielli is with them, with us. And his coach, right? Yes. I was a godfather of his daughter. So I call Anielli, he doesn't answer. I call his wife, he says that he's cooking lunch or something like that. She passes the phone to him and he said, no, that's a lie. He signed one day before that's a lie and then I say, look, let's, let's do a press release that that's a lie and that's not true and fine. He says, yeah, prepare a draft and then we do it. Hold on a minute. You said that my side of politics is bad. So this is the chairman of the event is close, personal friend family friends and everything says to your face. This is not. Yeah. And one week before he was in my house. So is still a friend? No, not close to a friend. So I stopped at a gas station, I prepared a draft. I spoke with one of our communications guys. I call him. He doesn't answer the phone and then he turns off the phone. So it's a new, it's a new, it's a new, it's happening. Yeah, yeah. Then I got, after that, I got a phone call from another club, another English club. They said, look, we have to be there and decent that. And then, did you, did you understand that, at least that sentiment? If the others are doing this, we have to be part of that. Did you understand, did you have any sympathy for that? I look, I looked at those people a bit differently than, than the others, and, who did you see as a real villain? It's hard to say that I don't want, now we have good relations with everyone. The betrayal was from Anjali, I mean, that's clear. And then later, you know, me and General Secretary, we went to the Congress dinner, where we had 150 delegates, 170 delegates, and I've never seen something like that. It looked, because it was already in the media, it looked like a funeral. And then I said, guys, don't worry, 24 hours, this is gone. I didn't know what I'm talking about. So we went out and General Secretary said, "Presents, 24 hours, come on, I said I don't know, I had to." So I prepared a tough, tough, tough, tough speech to attack them, cavity. And then I got a phone call from two English clubs and said, "We will go out tomorrow, but don't be on a crusade in your speech tomorrow." Sorry, they said they would come out of the bar. Yes, yes, they would pull out, but just don't kill us tomorrow. Then I was changing my speech that night, you're welcome back if you did a mistake, okay, mistakes happened. So it was quite interesting. Oh, are they being truthful? Yes, yes. They went out. They went out, yeah. So it was an interesting experience that's probably shorted my life a bit. And is that plan dead? Yes, yes. Yes, yes. I mean, look, it might happen in 20 years, you never know. But for now, we cooperate with everyone in a great way and I don't think I'm sure it cannot happen in the next 10 years. But if you think about it, so when I was growing up, football was very, very different to how it is now. And I would be focused on football in England and football in Scotland, and that was pretty much about it. Since then, the game has changed, European competition has become a much, much bigger part of it. Isn't there a logic, maybe to some kind of European super league, being founded? What is the strongest argument against saying, why can't we have a league of the top, top teams playing each other all the time? What's the big worry about it? First of all, if you look at the players in the best European teams, they are not raised in their teams. They are raised in their teams. in smaller clubs they start at the small villages in small countries and that wouldn't happen without the system of financing that we have. We are giving 240 million per forced solidarity just for the clubs that don't play Europe. So this is one second. I think that they don't understand that this competition would be boring. You don't want to watch Barcelona by every week. You don't want. And also why football is so interesting and why it's a small town sport, it's a religion in a way. One is that you don't need any money to play. But the second is that that's the only sport where David can be good at. And it happens every day. And that's the charm of football. You would lose all this. And European fans as much as they are difficult sometimes, it's not only easy with them. They are in love with this game and they would never allow that to happen. One interesting story if we have one minute. So the final of Champions League 2019 Liverpool Tottenham. I got an email from a fan, he said, "I'm Trevor, I'm the fan of Tottenham for 40 years, my father for 60 years, and we'll never again come to the final and I can't get a ticket." So I said send them two tickets. The day of the Super League, I get the email of the same Trevor saying, "Tell us what to do. We will destroy the stadiums, I mean, it's not just because of that, but that's this love for football." You do realize now that having said that and told that story that every Champions League final, now you're going to be inundated with eBay, I was thinking, "This guy's my email, that exchange." During that Super League period, I mean, you were up against some very powerful forces, business forces, different parts of the world, the golf getting in, the Middle East countries getting involved. And I was interested now, the PSG guy, NASA, he was on your side, is that right? Him and the German clubs were on our side and that was very important. It was important, obviously they understand football better and sometimes it's strange to see that the person that is not from Europe understands European football better than Europeans. And you mentioned the Germans there, the Bundesliga. Am I being very naive in thinking that their model of ownership, 50 plus one, couldn't be applied, which gives the fans a much, much greater state than they do in the Premier League, is that not a model that they should all aspire to? Look, this model from one point of view is good. From the other point of view, except Bayern Munich, they cannot compete on the top-top level because of that. So, if we come back to the Super League, Karl Heinz, Romania, he told me, "If I had a good joint Super League, I would have to leave German forever," he said, "I wouldn't be safe on the street." So German, German clubs were also tough. You talk about football being a religion, you talk about its importance in life and politics, and that's to take it seriously. How would you define the relationship between football and politics? People don't understand many times that governmental interference or political interference means that politicians cannot decide what happens in football. But from the other point of view, ethics influences all of us. Football is not on another planet, you know, even tax policy, different political decisions. So it's very connected. I mean, for us in Europe, it's very good that fans really love football. Fans do everything for their club or national team because that means that politicians will always support us because fans are the voters. You can never say, "I'm against millions and millions of fans if you're a politician, so that's good for us." As I said before, some honestly love football and some are just pragmatic and smart. All right, Alexander, we have a quick break, then back for more. The perfect lunch combo. That first bite of your favorite sub, followed by ice-cold Pepsi. 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Plus, surprise flash deals you can't miss. Whether it's one room or the whole house, Wayfair has pieces for every style and budget. Shop Wayfair's Labor Day clearance now through September 7 at Wayfair.com. you kicked Russia out of European tournaments. Can I just ask you one what that process involves, how you make that decision, whether that's influenced by politics of the capital P or that's a football decision, and also why Belarus don't get the same treatment, why he didn't think well they're absolutely part of Putin's operation they go to. Belarus or Israel. Yeah okay. So when this aggression started we had a meeting immediately of course you have a political pressure there not directly but indirectly you saw that the situation is so complicated that if we wouldn't do it I think 45 out of 55 iterations couldn't play because governments wouldn't allow them to play. And when you say you feel it indirectly was there any do you get any direct pressure? No no no we got some letters later about Belarus but I don't think that look first of all I don't like boycotts I don't like that athletes suffer because of political decisions do you think that a football player can say anything to Putin. In Russia. In Russia. No way. No way. So in a way it's said that they can't play for four years already but it's simply impossible to decide differently right now we can then if it happens that so many federations couldn't play or wouldn't be allowed to play then we can just close the door but trust me athletes don't support war at least vast majority don't support war and they suffer generations suffer you know politicians would put at least have to understand that young people should play why because they're raised in hatred they are raised in in a situation that Europe hates us our children don't hate Russian children we don't hate Russian nation whoever hates a nation is an idiot but unfortunately the situation is so complicated and from one point of view we had huge political pressure to kick out Russia and we had almost zero political pressure to kick out Israel and we had huge political pressure a public pressure to kick out Israel and zero public pressure to kick out Russia it's an interesting way to complicate its situation and I hope this war stops finally it's more than second world war. Israel Palestine is probably the most intractable difficult political problem right now what's the thinking in relation to that how do you you say if you've got a lot of public pressure I remember I was in Ireland when they were talking about playing Israel and no way they're going to play Israel and you felt sort of strength there if you had that feeling say in Germany or in England or France would that does that then do you feel that pressure coming on you maybe to make a different decision or no. No I mean as I said I don't think that ethics should suffer because of so it's got to be a really big thing for a boy. Yeah I mean or that it would stop football at all because look I remember when Yugoslavia was under sanctions and one of my colleagues in the council who was a player back then the answer each of you said we were all against Milošić we were all a kind of opposition but they flew to Denmark and they turned them around they didn't even give them the fuel they still had some of those people in the nation they're still some hatred because of that, because youngsters don't understand why we can't play football because of politics, because of even our idiotic politician. I said to my people, to my colleagues, 17-year-old Russian girls and boys, they don't even vote. How is the default that this guy started this terrible war? And yet those 17-year-olds can't compete in the junior competitions. For now, no. And that stays until the war's over. Yeah, let's see about the youngsters, but about the adults. I don't think we can do anything before it stops, but we are hoping that it stops, but we hope for four years already. You mentioned Yugoslavia there. So we're at the youth sport games, in which it's a Balkan initiative where you bring kids together from countries that maybe you've got a history of war and violence and fighting, and there's a fantastic event. Just first on that, just tell me your own story in terms of, so you served in the army, the army then was what? Which country was that? When you were a soldier? Where did they serve? No, which, if so, just- That was Yugoslavia. Right, so just to walk us through the history from your perspective, growing up, where you grew up, what that was like, and then how the whole thing broke up, and Slovenia became Slovenia and these countries now came that existed separately. Just to walk us through them. Yeah, I mean, I was born in '67 in the socialist times. In the West, they say that it was terrible. In Yugoslavia it was not so terrible. We didn't have much material stuff, but we were we were happy. We were always on the street. We did a lot of sports. I had a very happy, happy childhood. It was obligatory for everyone to serve the Yugoslavia National Army, so I went in 1986 till '87, one year. Even then, I've seen that it's not very strong anymore, you know, because it's probably economical situation. Then in 1991, end of '80s already, it started some kind of turmoil, you know, Yugoslavia, but mainly in Slovenia, about independence and it was quite a complicated situation, and then I remember that June '91, we agreed with some colleagues, some friends to go somewhere camping or something like that, and I got a phone call from one of them saying we can't go war started. Then I was called to Slovenian Army to fight against the same army that I served five years ago. How does that feel? So you've served in one army, alongside colleagues, colleagues, you then have the breakup and get in another army fighting against the people that you were with before. Yeah, it's very strange and thanks God it finished very soon in Slovenia because we had a referendum and I think around 90% was for independence, so it was quite easy. I didn't shoot it at all, and that's very good, but it was a strange and then you know, you see also the soldier of Yugoslav Army, I felt sorry for them, you know, these were 18-year-old children who were called in the army, and they were all scared, they didn't know, and the TV interviewed one of the soldiers of Yugoslav Army, and they said, "What's going on?" and the guy says, "I don't know, but they are like attacking us, and we are like defending." So they didn't know anything, they were children, they were not skilled, you know, and then when it stopped we had to block the barracks, and then these mothers came to see their children, and you have to check them, so it was tough, but thanks God in Slovenia was easy, Croatia was worse, and Bosnia was a disaster. Bosnia and Bosnia was, that was really sadder, I think around 100,000 that. Yeah, how do you define the relationships between the different parts of Yugoslavia now? Do you think it feels comfortable, relaxed? I think it's completely comfortable between Slovenians and everyone, Macedonians and everyone, you know, tenegrians and everyone. Croatia and Serbia, I think that that's more of a political push, and there of course in every country you have you have idiots who think that patriotism is nationalism, but I still think that it's getting better and better. And what role has sport played in improving life in this region? I can say about myself, I'm not an athlete, but in every single republic of Yugoslavia, they call me our president, and I feel the same, to be honest, I feel different, I cannot support any country against the country of Yugoslavia. Yeah, at the World Cup I was supporting a Croatian Bosnia, and to be honest Iran as well, because I felt sorry for these people who had to travel in and out. Mexico? Yes. Yeah, you went to Poland, Scotland. No, Scotland went out to so. I started to support them, they were out, you know. Tell us a little bit, because I mean, I love, I'm an ambassador of this youth sport game, so you were playing in the pro game tomorrow. You're the captain. I'm the captain, I've replaced you as captain, you know, AC, you've replaced as AC. Last night I sent you a message, because I was watching the girls final, and you've been a big supporter of women's football. I was watching it with Slavin Bellic, Marcel Desai and Sean Dach. They all said the girls were better than the boys. Yeah, that's, that's interesting. Amazing. Yes, technically girls are fantastic. I mean, watch Champions League final male and female. Technically they are very good, but physically of course they cannot, they cannot compete. But you know, my second final in 2018 was in Kiev and we played male final on the main stadium and then a very small stadium, women's Champions League final with half empty and it was like 5,000 seats. Now we feel every stadium. So it's going up. I always say two things about women's football are important. One is you cannot expect the sports that is relatively young compared to male football, to be on the similar level because in many of the European countries football was not, women's football was not played 10 years ago. And do you think we should think of the other separate sports? Not separate sports, but you have to just understand that you cannot say, okay, the profit with males euro is one billion and with women's if we come to break even we can be happy. That's not, or we lose money. I say that's not a loss. That's investment because it goes better and better and better. And the second thing I tell the sponsors and broadcasters, you know, you should invest into the sports that is relatively cheap and it's still you can invest much less money in the women's football and it grows fast. So I'm very optimistic on women's football. Can we talk a bit about money? Is there such a thing as too much money for a player? As long as clubs are ready to pay, they're obviously worth that money. But the numbers went really sky high. Sky high and I don't know till when this can continue. And how do you feel about the kind of the seems to this sort of conveyor belt for the really good players? Are they going through, you know, decade or so of top club and international football and they they had off to Saudi Arabia? Is that a good development or a bad development? Depends from person to person. I spoke with some players who said that they would not go no matter what money and some players that that for the end of the career they want to go there. I have to say I have to show respect also to Saudi football and say they're really trying to do their best. It's not easy to start almost from scratch and then compete with the big with the big leagues. I think that the thing that they should do probably more is develop their own players because they're a young nation and I remember China for example I told the Chinese football president many times. If you buy players that cannot play in Europe anymore for a huge amount of money that doesn't help Chinese football. You have to bring coaches. You have to open academies. You have 1.5 billion people for sure. You have talents and it's also a bit let's say agglistic because if we would have a top Chinese player that would be huge because MBA raised when they got jouming. So I think that academies are more important than you can buy one star just for promotion but I don't think they train properly. I don't think they you know. It was interesting in the world cup of the 10 most populous countries in the world. China obviously being and you've been the two most populous of the 10 most populous countries in the world only two were at the world cup. USA and Brazil. So it's not just about the talent pool. It's about the system, do you then? Absolutely. It's about system. And Europe has a great system. Europe has a great system. And look, Spain is not the biggest country, but they have probably the best academies. When you see these young players, it's really unbelievable. I even guessed right before the World Cup. And I said, Spain will be the champion. And my sister is a professor of architecture. So she said that the dormant is collecting bets, who will be the winner. But she doesn't watch football at all. So I said, say, Spain. So she got 120 euros. The last time I was here at the youth sport games, last year in Sarajevo, Karanka, former middleman manager now with the Spanish team, he said to me, the last four teams in the World Cup will be Spain, France, England, Argentina. That's even better. Yes, even better. Which is that this may be an impossible question. I don't know whether you even feel politically and diplomatically can answer this. How would you rank the top leagues in Europe? Probably the Premier League is the strongest. Because? Because they have so many teams, competitive teams. Germany's got you a Barcelona Bayern point. If you have the top, yes, the bottom. Yeah, I mean, in Spain, I think you have, let's say, three strong Barcelona Real, Atlético. Germany, you have Bayern Munich and to a certain point, Borussia Dortmund. Italy is changing. It was Juventus before, now it's Inter, but it's a bit of an in England. New strong teams are coming. I was quite impressed by Aston Villa now at the Super Cup. They were great. So and in France, PSG is another planet, so. So that's why probably the Premier League is the strongest. So we're coming towards the end. I want to ask you a little bit about yourself. So you mentioned a happy childhood growing up in former Yugoslavia. But essentially, you made your name as a lawyer. What are the skills in law that help you in football politics? I was a criminal lawyer for 25 years, and that helps. In 25 years of criminal law, I met less criminals than in two years of football. But I exaggerated a bit, but it helped. And in court, you have to know how to act. You have to judge people properly. So I think it helped. And what you say you're not going to go for the presence of FIFA. One of the proposals that helped you get elected was term limits for UEFA. So you presumably soon going to have to start thinking about your own future? Yes. After UEFA, you never know, of course, you don't do plans for so long. But I would like to have a bit more easy life. I think I would spend more time at home with my family. So unlike some other people, I have life out of football. And I don't have time for it now. I try to take another job like that. I don't want to jinx it, but I don't. Tell me about the karate. So you've had the same coach for how long? Yeah, 28 years. 28 years. And what does-- I'm not on karate. Yeah, OK. I mean, you look pretty fit. But what does it do for you? It's a great sport, because you compete with yourself. You don't compete with the others. It's a kind of meditation. And my teacher is Japanese, who sees sports also from a kind of philosophical point of view. So it's good. Now we don't train anymore, because he had a car accident. But I think I will do it soon again. Final question. Gary Lenicka, he was-- he all knows a footballer. But he's also has a podcast. Not as successful as the rest is politics, but it's called the rest is football. So here's a clip from Gary. Hi, Alexander. I think I'd like to reflect the concerns, perhaps, of many football fans, particularly around the financial fair play rules that seem to benefit some clubs and not so much others. I think people look at perhaps Manchester City in particular at the moment. I wondered your thoughts on that. And also, perhaps for me, the most damaging thing that's happened to our sport in the last generation, if not in the entirety of time, is VAR. And I wondered if you had any influence or any plans to change VAR, perhaps to an appeal system, or indeed, to get rid of it altogether, which I think most football fans would approve of. Yeah, first of all, Manchester City, we finished our case years ago, so it's done. And what is done, everything is done. So that's not an end. This is done. Right, but Premier League is doing it still, and I cannot comment what they would do because I don't know the case. But you know the thing that leaves a bad taste for football fans is they feel that these new rules are brought in-- In Premier League or in UEFA, because they're different rules. No, I don't know about football fans. Football fans have the sense that Manchester City were getting away with it. Yeah, football fans also shout UEFA mafia, but I don't think we are mafia. So sometimes, city fans think one thing united fans. They can't both always be right. No, no, no, no, no. So that's why you need law and you pros-- Yeah, I think that financial fair place is quite tough. And do you think that's-- do you think financial fair play has helped deliver on some of the things you want, which is-- Yes, yes, yes, yes. Now, narrow in the gap is quite a problem, but at least to stop the gap becoming bigger and bigger. Our problem is that we are not police. We cannot come into a club and take and seize the documents and computers and everything else. We are depending on what they show us. And about VR, I think that VR helped, in some cases, it helped, for sure, an off-site case, but now we were discussing before this FIFA thing happened. Now, it's not much discussion that at least the tors should be in front, because if you have a long nose or a long feet, it shouldn't be-- it's not an advantage, so it shouldn't be off-site. But off-site roll, let's say it helped a lot. With handball, I don't think that it helps. It should be the decision of the referee. Look, we had top 15 coaches a couple of years ago, Zidane, Wartiola, Klopp, Murinho, everybody. And our chief refereeing officer shows a handball, a ball touching a hand of a player. And he says handball or no handball? Seven says handball, eight says no. Top coaches. How can then a fan understand? I don't know exactly when the handball is a penalty or not. I mean, you know if it's like this, so that's complicated. And for the red card, probably it's good. This might use much, but it should be over 10. You've raised a balligan red card. That's what was your reaction? I mean, that was more than shocking. We have rules, and if you don't respect your own rules, then the game doesn't make any sense. I mean, some of the federations, not in Europe, are suspended because of governmental interference. Now, here, president of a country says, I called him. And I told him to look at it. And then, if a president says, but it was an independent decision. I mean, for us as football fans or for us as a governing body, that's shocking. That's shocking. And trust me, almost everybody was shocked. Just not everybody dared speaking. They speak because the rules says red card at least one match, suspension. Of course, also, the fact that Trump was saying, how would you feel if I took messier of the Argentina team? And then I'll also say, I didn't understand that you get a ban if you get a red card. So how is in Fantino allowed himself to be so influenced by somebody who clearly knows very little, probably cares very little about a sport that you say billions of people love? I mean, first, that's a question for in Fantino, not for me. For sure. But second, I think that even the politician, if a politician is the biggest expert in football, you don't speak with a politician about it. You shouldn't. You can always say it's only one match. You can always, even if it's an independent committee, within the rules, they always care what is in the interest of the organization as well. But within the rules, you cannot go out of the rules. Was Balligan one of the reasons why he didn't go to the final? I don't know. I don't know. I don't want to say that that was that was the reason. There were so many reasons that I decided not to go and I. But if you've come through with that, I knew that the decision is right. Some of my colleagues said maybe you should go and they all say now it was the right decision. Because it was happening. Yes, yes, yes. Well, listen, thank you very much to open the dresses for us. Thank you for reminding. [Music] For Gallup for six months, open soon, limited time offer new members only. B.J.'s home of the save. Cozy season is ahead and you'll be spending way more time inside. Is your home ready? Don't worry. Score up to 70% off during their Labor Day clearance on furniture, area rugs, mattresses and more. Shoff Wayfair's Labor Day clearance now through September 7th at Wayfair.com. Wayfair every style, every home. Hi, Ryan Reynolds here for Mint Mobile. Are you looking for a beach read this summer? May I suggest your big wireless bill? 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