FAI CHIEF EXECUTIVE John Delaney is the running for a place on the Uefa’s Executive Committee.
European football’s governing body will hold an election for the eight available seats at the 41st Ordinary Uefa Congress in Helsinki on 5 April.
Delaney is among 13 candidates hoping to win enough votes, along with former Manchester United CEO David Gill, who hopes to earn re-election.
If successful, he will sit on the committee for a four-year term.
Here’s a list of all the candidates:
- Zbigniew Boniek (Poland)
- Kairat Boranbayev (Kazakhstan)
- John Delaney (Republic of Ireland)
- Armand Duka (Albania)
- David Gill (England)*
- Reinhard Grindel (Germany)
- Marios N Lefkaritis (Cyprus)*
- Elkhan Mammadov (Azerbaijan)
- Karl-Erik Nilsson (Sweden)
- Kieran O’Connor (Wales)
- Michele Uva (Italy)
- Michael van Praag (Netherlands)*
- Servet Yardımcı (Turkey)
* standing for re-election
Meanwhile, Uefa’s executive today voted in favour of limiting leaders to three four-year terms and guaranteeing two seats for Europe’s increasingly powerful clubs.
The moves were part of reforms that new leader Aleksander Ceferin has vowed to introduce since taking over from the scandal-tainted Michel Platini in September.
If agreed at the Congress, the Uefa president and 16 executive members will be limited to three four-year terms.
The governance reforms would also mean that any executive member seeking re-election must hold an active top office in his country’s national association, such as president or general secretary.
With the Fifa scandal and its fallout in Europe still fresh in many minds, two extra independent members of Uefa’s governance and compliance committee are to be named.
A specific article will also be added to the Uefa statutes to insist that venues for all European competitions “are selected in a fully objective manner through a transparent bidding process.”
Europe’s top clubs and their union, the European Club Association, have sought for years a place on football’s top table.
They want a greater say in the football calendar — regularly complaining that players are put into too many games — and on the shareout of the huge revenues from the Champions League and four-yearly European Championships.
European clubs received €150 million in compensation from Uefa for Euro 2016 and this will rise to at least 200 million euros for the 2020 tournament.
The ECA will have “two full member positions” on the Uefa excecutive under Ceferin’s plan. That will increase competition for fewer places for national associations.
Ceferin said: “I am very pleased that the Executive Committee gave a unanimous backing to reforms I consider essential for the strengthening of Uefa and which formed a key pillar of my presidential manifesto.
“I am convinced that our member associations will also endorse these good governance proposals to create a stronger and more transparent governing body for the good of European football.”
- © AFP, 2017 with additional reporting from Ben Blake
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Soccer always attracts the best
@John O Reilly: Turkey are a cut above.
@John O Reilly: soccer is a game for all, the rich, the poor and everyone in between. It’s not elitist and is representative of society as a whole, as all sports should be. This incident is representative of our society not soccer fans in general.
@GrumpyAulFella: it’s called football,generally it’s country people & Gaa heads who call it soccer…..FIFA UEFA don’t have the name soccer attached to them
@Tony Doyle: it’s the English themselves who coined the term soccer. People can it whatever they want. Your “country people (whatever that means) and GAA heads” quip is quite nonsensical.
@Tony Doyle: Wrong. It’s not called football. It’s called association football which is where the word soccer comes from and both FIFA and uefa have the word association in their names. It’s not just country people and gaa heads, as you so unintelligently put it, that call it that. It’s called that in other countries as well like the USA and Australia to distinguish it from the likes of American football or Aussie Rules Football in the same way it’s used here to differentiate it from Gaelic football. If anything soccer is a more correct term than just football as it’s derived from the sport’s proper name
@Mark Jay: Correct. Specifically it was students in Oxford who used the terms soccer and rugger to differentiate between association and rugby football
Very unlike the Turkish fans.
Have no interest in any team who supports putin. Fans or club’s.
Disgusting.
It takes a special kind of person to stoop to a level that low. Soccer fans get their moment in the spotlight. Can’t really say it was only a small percent in this case
They are some soulless people in the world unfortunately and this is an example.
Jayyyysus
Strange war if football players don’t have to sign up. Just asking…
@John Smith: perhaps they’re the morale booster the troops need? Something to tune into outside of the war, just saying…
I don’t think there are very many critical thinkers among the readership here.
What would you expect from a pig but a grunt?!
Do you know why the war started?
Gh,
@David Hughes: Well said
@mcdb06: and thanks to you I will be forever in your debt
G
I guess we are all Fenerbache fans now
@JustBEERbarry: don’t you mean Dynamo??
Gh
meh… Kiev still won…. They (the chanting fans) were just showing themselves up as sore losers
Igno rant fules. Likely to be perceived as toxic. And rightly so.
Turkish fans chose right side. Any respect from tolerant Europe?