Former AC Milan star and director Zvonimir Boban has resigned from UEFA.
Boban has left his role as Head of Football in protest against UEFA president Aleksander Ceferin’s attempts to extend his stay beyond previously agreed terms.
Boban said: “I spoke and discussed with the president of UEFA regarding to a problem that arose during the last Executive meeting in Hamburg.
“This is a proposal to the Congress next February, to modify the UEFA statute and allow the President himself to be able to run again after this mandate which was supposed to be his last.
“After having expressed my greatest concern and my total disagreement, the President replied to me that for him there is no legal or even moral ethical problem and that he would pursue, without any doubt, his own aspiration.
“Paradoxically, in 2017 it was Ceferin himself who proposed and initiated a package of reforms that clearly denied this possibility: rules that were supposed to protect UEFA and European football from the ‘bad governance’ that has been years the ‘modus operandi’ of the entire old system. It was an extraordinary thing for football and also for Ceferin himself. This detachment from those values by canceling the most important reforms is surprising and incomprehensible, especially at this time.
“I understand well that nothing is ideal, least of all me, and I know well that we must accept the logic of compromise, but faced with this fact, if I accepted it, I would be going against the common principles and values in which I firmly believe. And I’m not a phenomenon, because I’m certainly not the only one who thinks this way. In these three years the relationship and collaboration with Aleksander and with all my colleagues in UEFA has been excellent. I thank them for this and wish them all the best possible. I’m very sorry but, reluctantly, I’m leaving UEFA…”
