Arsenal and Chelsea are being cautious following the UEFA president’s 2018 decision to impose a two-year ban on Manchester City.
After Aleksander Ceferin stated that UEFA officials were “right” about Manchester City breaking Financial Fair Play regulations after the team was eliminated from the Champions League, Arsenal and Chelsea will be extremely nervous. 2018 saw Pep Guardiola’s team get a two-year ban following their conviction for violating FFP rules.
The ruling was eventually reversed after City appealed it to the Court of Arbitration for Sport. Ceferin spoke out in an interview with The Telegraph following the Premier League’s announcement that a hearing date has been scheduled for its 115 allegations against the defending champions under its own regulations.
The 56-year-old claimed that UEFA made the right choice in 2018 but would not say if City, who have denied any wrongdoing, should lose their titles if found guilty by an impartial panel. “We know we were right,” Ceferin remarked. If we didn’t believe we were correct, we wouldn’t make a decision.
Ceferin clarified that he still respects the CAS ruling in spite of this. “As a trial lawyer for twenty-five years, I know that sometimes you win a case that you are certain you will lose,” the speaker continued. And occasionally, even when you’re certain, you lose a case.
“In a true democracy, you have to simply follow the court’s ruling. I have no desire to discuss the case in England. However, I think our independent body made the right conclusion. This was not a decision that I made.”
Clubs throughout Europe will have been terrified by UEFA and its president’s tough attitude on breaking the rules. Having said that, football.london has examined Ceferin’s prior remarks regarding Arsenal and Chelsea to determine whether or not the two London teams are on his good side.
The Slovenian was irritated in 2019 by Arsenal and Chelsea after the two teams protested UEFA’s choice to hold the Europa League final in Baku. The UEFA president chastised the Gunners and the Blues for their behaviour and attitude towards the venue selection during a speech at Oxford University.
“Whenever we have English clubs, whenever we have complaints,” stated Ceferin. With that, you don’t assist your own popularity in European football. If someone were to ask me why we performed in Baku, I would respond, “People, homo sapiens, live there.”
“Nobody would object if two Azerbaijani teams were playing in London. They would play without any issues when they came. We chose to play in Baku, which has a state-of-the-art stadium with seating for 70,000, a year and a half ago.
“I believe that the largest stadium in England is just one. Due to the time difference, they had to watch the game at 11 p.m., but no one voiced any complaints.”
After exiting the European Super League, Arsenal and Chelsea appeared to be back on UEFA’s good graces in 2021. The ‘big six’ all agreed to participate in the divisive project before abandoning it in the wake of widespread nationwide protests.
“We’ll have to join this project,” stated Ceferin, in a phone call he received from an English club when he arrived in Switzerland, during an interview with Gary Neville for Sky Sports’ podcast “The Overlap.” They didn’t want to be the only ones out, even though they didn’t like it.
“Two teams in England were quite hesitant, saying they wanted to remain friends with us, our internal allies. It was one of these teams that called me, as Chelsea and Manchester City were both cautious at first.”
Finally, earlier this month, Ceferin provided his assessment of the multi-club models that are becoming more and more common. One such example is Chelsea, whose owners purchased Ligue 1 club Strasbourg under the moniker “BluesCo” shortly after purchasing the west London team.
He told The Telegraph, “You understand football. If a large English club is having a terrible day, they can lose 3-0 against a minor Portuguese club. What if the ownership is the same? “See, your competition is fixed,” you would say, and then you would start to lose everything.
“This is the main issue I’m having trouble solving. ‘Okay, you may do it under these and these and these circumstances,’ we could always say. But you shouldn’t take complete control of two or more. That’s my view for the time being. We were unable to reach a firm conclusion.”
