The Football Association of Ireland have voted with the overwhelming majority of Uefa members to allow the governing body’s president Aleksander Čeferin to run for an unprecedented fourth term.
England chief executive Mark Bullingham was the only representative at Uefa Congress in Paris to vote against the rule change. The English FA, along with the Norwegian and Icelandic federations, had earlier voted against bundling multiple amendments into a single vote.
Also included in the bundle of changes that would allow Čeferin to extend his tenure, is an agreement to expand the minimum number of women on the 20-strong Uefa executive committee from one to two representatives.
Bullingham held up the only red card against governance change, while sitting two rows in front of FAI CEO Jonathan Hill and the association’s newly elected president Paul Cooke, inside La Maison de la Mutualité conference centre in the French capital.
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However, Čeferin quickly announced his intention not to seek re-election in 2027 despite 49 of 55 national bodies voting to expand term lengths on the Uefa ExCo.
“I decided six months ago that I would not run any more,” said Čeferin. “I intentionally didn’t want to disclose my thoughts before, because firstly, I wanted to see the real face of some people, and I saw it.”
The Slovenian administrator has led Uefa since Michel Platini was forced to resign in 2016 after receiving a payment from former Fifa president Sepp Blatter.
In his opening address, Čeferin said: “My daughter actually told me: ‘Father, sometimes I think you are a character from The Lord of the Rings.’ But I’m not. I’m not interested in the ring.”
An FA spokesperson told The Guardian: “We believe that it was always intended that a principle of three terms of four years should be a maximum period for any Uefa exco member to serve. We have recently implemented governance changes of our own and think it’s important that we are consistent in our approach.”
The FAI has been approached for comment.
The 48th Congress also unanimously reappointed European Club Association (ECA) chairperson Nasser Al-Khelaïfi, the president of Paris Saint-Germain, and Atlético de Madrid CEO Miguel Ángel Gil Marín to their executive committee.
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