The Football Association gave official support for Aleksander Ceferin to be re-elected Uefa president and sent a written endorsement just three weeks after Uefa’s catastrophic organisation of the Champions League final in May. Senior FA officials including the chair, Debbie Hewitt, were at the final between Liverpool and Real Madrid at the Stade de France, where Liverpool supporters suffered crushing and violent policing, then were falsely blamed by Uefa.
For weeks after the match Liverpool supporters spoke out and provided evidence to counter Uefa’s claims that fans had been late and thousands without valid tickets had overwhelmed the turnstiles. Many Liverpool fans who had survived the Hillsborough disaster, where South Yorkshire police told similar lies, said the experience in Paris exacerbated their trauma.
Uefa announced an independent review days after the 28 May final, the French senate set up an inquiry and a ministerial official, Michel Cadot, conducted a rapid investigation which identified a series of disastrous failings in a report on 16 June.
On the same day, the FA chief executive, Mark Bullingham, wrote to the board of English football’s governing body, asking its members to endorse Ceferin formally for re-election. Hewitt and the board agreed, and the FA wrote to Uefa giving its official backing. The FA did not make this public then, nor in the eight months since, until the organisation confirmed it when asked by the Guardian this week.
Despite the chaos at the final, no European FA put forward any alternative candidate by the January deadline, and Ceferin is set to be re-elected for another four years next month, unopposed.
Ian Byrne, a Liverpool MP who was at the match as a supporter and has called on Ceferin to consider his position, said: “I’m disgusted to discover the FA’s backing for Ceferin; it shows the whole football system is built on patronage. Liverpool supporters will feel betrayed that while they were dealing with their trauma and having to push back against Uefa’s false narrative, the FA, which is supposed to look after our interests, was secretly giving the Uefa president its seal of approval.”
Joe Blott, chair of the Liverpool supporters’ trust Spirit of Shankly, said: “It was always clear that Uefa and the French authorities were to blame for the entirely avoidable problems in Paris. For nearly nine months, supporters were proactively promoting the truth and seeking justice, yet the FA chose to remain silent.
“To hear that in June the FA endorsed Ceferin and his clearly dysfunctional organisation is staggering, truly shocking and a huge letdown of supporters by our governing body.”
After the final, concerns were raised about alleged cronyism at Uefa, particularly in relation to the 2021 appointment of Ceferin’s close friend Zeljko Pavlica to head the safety and security unit. The Guardian reported on four further appointments of people with close ties to Ceferin in his home country of Slovenia, who had been appointed to senior Uefa positions, and criticisms from former Uefa administrators who had left citing concerns. Uefa denied cronyism, saying all appointees were “proven professionals” and that Pavlica was highly experienced and had been the “natural successor” for his role.
In September Ceferin appeared to confirm he had been involved in the appointments, telling Janko Petrovec, of Slovenia’s national broadcaster RTV Slovenija: “That I was accused of nepotism is, I think, your invention. That I was accused of bringing five competent Slovenians … I don’t mind. If I brought competent people that I trust to Uefa, that are hard-working people there … I think I am quite good in this world of football.”
Uefa’s independent review reported last month, finding that the European governing body had “primary responsibility” for the failures that almost caused a “mass fatality catastrophe”, and that the safety and security unit headed by Pavlica had allowed itself to be “marginalised”.
The governance of football’s continental confederations, to which all national FAs belong, has been widely criticised in recent years and accused of being based on patronage, particularly since the corruption scandals at Fifa. Critics view the system’s apparent voting democracy as flawed, because FAs seek favour from sitting regimes and there is rarely any opposition to provide critical scrutiny.
The FA is perceived by many to have been seeking favour from Ceferin and Uefa, largely to build relationships and because it is bidding to co-host the 2028 European Championship. In October Hewitt was put forward to be Uefa’s representative as a Fifa vice-president, a position that comes with a $300,000 remuneration on top of her FA salary, for which she needs votes from European FAs and would therefore benefit from Uefa support. The Guardian understands from within football that Ceferin asked Hewitt to stand, but the FA and Uefa declined to confirm if that was the case.
Liverpool supporter groups were critical after the Paris final of the response from the FA, which said nothing publicly for nine months until Uefa’s review reported. The FA’s statement then still did not criticise Uefa, but welcomed the report’s findings and called for “positive action” to avoid any repeat. FA sources emphasised that although the organisation had made no public statement before that, nor made contact with any Liverpool supporter groups for months after the final, Hewitt had privately been in regular discussion with Liverpool to offer the FA’s support.
An FA spokesperson said: “We supported Aleksander Ceferin’s re-election as president of Uefa based on his track record in the role over a number of years, which included dealing with the threat of a breakaway European Super League, and working with us to deliver the very successful Women’s European Championship in England in the summer of 2022.”
The spokesperson reiterated the FA’s welcome for the independent review and its recommendations, and welcomed Uefa’s apology after the report, including for “unjustly blaming the Liverpool fans”.
Uefa did not respond to questions, including about Ceferin’s comments that appeared to confirm his involvement in appointments, or Hewitt’s candidacy for Fifa vice-president. Last month Uefa welcomed the review report and said it “commits to implementing key recommendations to improve fan safety at future events”.
