Sports / Feature and Column
Time for UEFA to decide to stick or twist
(Reuters)
Updated: 2007-01-19 17:38
LONDON, Jan 19 - When Swede Lennart Johansson was voted UEFA president in
April 1990, the biggest upheaval in European soccer's history was
underway.
Next Friday, the 52 members who now comprise the European confederation,
the richest and most influential in world soccer, will decide at UEFA's
Congress in Duesseldorf whether they want Johansson, now 77, to lead them
for a fifth successive term.
The alternative is to bid a fond farewell to the popular and avuncular
leader and replace him with a charismatic man 26 years his junior --
Frenchman Michel Platini.
For the first time since he was elected at the Congress in Malta 16 years
ago, beating Freddy Rumo of Switzerland by 20-15 votes, Johansson is
facing a serious threat to his position.
Fit and well again after health scares, Johansson says he has the stamina
to go on for years. He is also driven by a fierce desire to keep Platini
out of his presidential chair.
Now a little wider around the middle and chubbier in the jowl, Platini
may no longer cut quite the dash he did as one of the greatest players in
the world in the 1980s, when he led France to victory in Euro 84 and
lifted titles with Juventus.
However, the 51-year-old is again close to claiming another of soccer's
glittering prizes.
Being elected the president of UEFA has none of the romance of lifting
silverware in front of adoring fans, scoring great goals or bamboozling
defenders with audacious skills. But in the rarefied air of soccer
politics, it is just one step below the highest rung of all -- the
presidency of FIFA.
BLATTER INFLUENCE
Johansson stood for that office himself in 1998 and lost to Sepp Blatter
of Switzerland.
Blatter, despite his best efforts to appear neutral, seems to be in
Platini's corner -- and his perceived support for his one-time FIFA
personal advisor could tip the vote Platini's way.
The question that delegates need to resolve by next Friday is, of course:
what exactly are we voting for?
The election manifestos of the two candidates are remarkably similar in
many respects, with Johansson naturally stressing the need for continuity
to finish the job he started.
Platini is calling for a more modern approach to take UEFA and European
soccer to new, higher levels.
The principal differences centre on the Champions League. Johansson wants
to maintain the status quo of a competition he helped create -- and the
cornerstone of so much of the wealth UEFA has generated since it began in
1992.
Platini has called for a change to its structure with the major countries
like England, Italy, Spain, Germany and France, relinquishing one of
their three or four places. These would instead be allocated to the
champions of a country who, at present, have to qualify for the lucrative
group stages.
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