UEFA president Aleksander Čeferin: 'European football's future is bright'
Thursday, February 12, 2026
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President Čeferin's opening speech at UEFA Congress focused on the game's power to unite, with the need for fans, players and communities to remain at its heart.
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Below, we highlight some of the key messages from the president's address to delegates at our 50th Ordinary Congress, held in Brussels, a city at the very heart of Europe.
On football's power to unite
It is easy to see why the European Union chose the motto: ‘United in diversity’. Three words. One ambition. One quiet warning: unity is never guaranteed.
In a world that fragments, football still connects. In a continent that argues, football still gathers. In societies that divide, football still offers a common language.
That is why ‘United in diversity’ does not belong only to the EU. It belongs just as much to European football – 55 national football associations. Thousands of clubs. Millions of players, volunteers and supporters. Different histories. Different realities. And yet, one pyramid.
In a world where disagreement too often turns into disrespect, and shouting replaces listening, football shows another way – and insists on respect. Respect between rivals. Respect for shared rules. Respect for the game itself.
Respect is football’s quiet superpower – one the world is increasingly short of. When respect holds under pressure, it shows where football succeeds when politics, too often, fails. This is what leadership looks like. And this is how European football is carried forward – through decisions taken with responsibility, guided by unity and grounded in stability.
Despite the noise, despite the pressure, despite the doubts of some – European football’s future is bright.
On overcoming recent challenges
Our game was challenged like never before – a global pandemic, wars, geopolitical tensions and economic pressure.
Yet, European football held its line. It held because we chose unity over fragmentation. Because we chose stewardship over improvisation. Because we were driven by the conviction that European football’s future is bright.
On European football remaining open and true to the European sports model
Leaders come and go. Empires rise and fall. Football stays – season after season, generation after generation. Deeply woven into the fabric of our communities: buses to away games, packed stands, and voices that know the chants by heart… We must keep it that way.
Football cannot be bought or sold. It will never be closed. It is for all. And what belongs to everyone is stronger than any single force. This is why European football’s future is bright.
On the new format of UEFA's club competitions
Many doubted it. Some warned us. Others predicted failure. So, what did we do? We consulted. We listened. We adjusted. Then, we acted – together. And the results are clear.
On the pitch, the impact was immediate. The competitions are now more dynamic, more competitive, and packed with goals, tension and drama from Matchday 1 to Matchday 8.
This is no coincidence. It is the result of a system where places are earned on the pitch, season after season – not reserved for some. Where competitions are developed openly, collectively and responsibly – not designed in isolation, negotiated in secrecy, or engineered by a few, for a few.
On this week's agreement with EFC and Real Madrid
I am personally very happy that Real Madrid and Barcelona joined the family again. We were all tired of these disputes. We had some disagreements with the president of Real Madrid, Florentino Perez, but let me be clear, we never lost respect for ourselves, for each other, and we never lost the love for the game. Let me be even clearer, the only winner of this situation is football.
On football's responsibility to fans and increased dialogue with supporter organisations
There is one essential truth we shall never forget: even the strongest collective achievement weakens if it drifts away from the people. Football must never do that. It can be a big stage – but never a political theatre. A game for the people – not a tool for power.
Because football is about belonging, not branding. Identity, not industry. Community, not commodity.
If European football’s future is bright, and it is bright, it is also thanks to those who live football most intensely: the supporters.
We have strengthened our dialogue with fan organisations. Our relationship is not always easy. We do not always agree. But we always stay at the table – because fans are not a backdrop. They are the bedrock. And any structure that forgets its bedrock eventually cracks.
We must open doors, not close them. Protect genuine supporters, not push them away, and keep football homes as places of belonging, not exclusion. Because security and inclusion are not opposites. They depend on each other. This is the spirit we defend – as we work, together, to ensure that European football’s future stays bright.
On UEFA EURO 2028 ticket prices
UEFA remains firmly committed to fan-friendly ticketing. This will be most visible at EURO 2028 where fair and transparent principles – not pricing algorithms – put supporters first. We will not price out families. We will not turn loyalty into luxury.
A game that knows where to draw the line can endure. A game that forgets limits eventually loses its people.
On protecting players and UEFA's growing collaboration with FIFPRO Europe
Players' commitment on the pitch shows why European football’s future is bright.
However, overloading them in pursuit of manufactured trophies or self-serving spectacles turn ambition into excess. Top players need rest and recovery. The game needs them at their best – not exhausted.
Just as importantly, playing time must be shared more wisely: , fewer players overburdened, more playing meaningful minutes. Not a handful carrying everything, while others watch from the sidelines.
Our cooperation with FIFPRO Europe starts from here. What was once difficult has, over recent years, become constructive – moving from confrontation to cooperation, from fixed positions to shared solutions. And this journey is just beginning.
On preventing domestic matches from taking place abroad
Domestic leagues draw their strength from their territories, their traditions and their match-going fans.
Exporting domestic matches abroad may serve short-term interests but it weakens connection and erodes loyalty.
How do you build identity if you remove the game from its home – from those who sing for 90 minutes, who travel in the rain, who follow their clubs through every competition? How do you sustain local passion if you trade it away?
Of course, we can work globally. And of course, we do. But never by sacrificing roots for reach.
Football in Europe is strongest when it lives where the people are. In towns, suburbs and neighbourhoods where clubs are part of everyday life. That strength grows from something simple: children playing football. It is where the journey starts. And a shining reason we can say European football’s future is bright.
On international football and this summer's FIFA World Cup
National team football is the force that links what happens in our clubs every week with something larger than any league: local passion and continental ambition.
For players, it means everything. You can be transferred from one club to another – but you never change your national team. That pride runs deep. It is personal, but also shared, inherited and unshakably collective. We will see it again this summer – all the very best to the national associations that will represent Europe.
On women's football's continued growth and Women’s EURO 2025
New competitions and rising standards are taking the women’s game to new heights – yet more evidence that we are going in the right direction.
You only had to witness the Women’s EURO in Switzerland last year to feel it. It was breath-taking, record-breaking, and above all: unifying.
More than 650,000 supporters filled the stadiums. All but two matches sold out. Over half -a- billion watched worldwide... For a few weeks, in a difficult and unsettled world, football gave Europe something precious again: shared joy – goals celebrated together, families in the stands, girls imagining themselves on the pitch.
Moments like this remind us of the unique power of national team competitions – to gather, to inspire, to elevate. Across both the women’s and men’s game, they show why European football’s future is bright.
On national associations creating chances for children to play
Every four years, more than €55 million goes directly to the grassroots. Our Football in Schools programme has now reached 7.6 million children – including more than three million girls.
This is just one example of how national associations strengthen the very fabric of the beautiful game. Together, these efforts shape an ecosystem that is alive, inclusive, healthy. And that allows European football to renew itself, year after year.
National associations are at the centre of this work – this is your legacy, and you can be proud of it. You anchor football in society. You turn today’s first steps into tomorrow’s game. You give the game both its base and its face. It is through your work, day in, day out that European football’s future is bright.