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Tag: UEFA

  • UEFA lists records Ronaldo can break at 35

    UEFA lists records Ronaldo can break at 35

    The Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) has listed the records Juventus superstar, Cristiano Ronaldo, can break in the Champions League.

    According to UEFA, Ronaldo can become the 50th player aged over 35 to score in the Champions League since the competition was introduced in 1992/1993 and also overtake the goals record of Didier Drogba (5), Laurent Blanc (4), Filippo Inzaghi (4), Ryan Giggs (3), Ulf Kirsten (4).

    The European football body said this while extending birthday wishes to Ronaldo, as he turns 35 years on February 5.

    In a statement on their official website, UEFA said: “Cristiano Ronaldo turns 35 today: that means a chance to break more UEFA Champions League records as one of the top 35+ scorers in the history of the competition.

    “Ronaldo’s first challenge is to become the 50th player aged over 35 to score in the Champions League since the competition started in 1992/1993.

    After that, the Juventus and Portugal forward can see whether he can overtake the following luminaries:
    5: Didier Drogba (Galatasaray, Chelsea)
    4: Laurent Blanc (Manchester United)
    4: Filippo Inzaghi (AC Milan)
    3: Ryan Giggs (Manchester United)
    3: Ulf Kirsten (Bayer Leverkusen).”

  • UEFA president criticises VAR use

    Football needs uncertainty, the head of European soccer body UEFA said, as he criticised the way the Video Assistant Referee (VAR) technology had changed the character of football matches.

    Aleksander Ceferin said that UEFA would propose soccer’s rulemaking IFAB make changes to the way the VAR system, officially introduced in 2018, was being implemented, though he did not want to give more details.

    The use of system, where match officials use video replays to check decisions by the referee on the pitch and flag possible mistakes, has been surrounded by controversy over the last few months.

    Critics say the system goes far beyond its original remit and that decisions are taking too long.

    “The game is changing and we are afraid that it is changing too much,” Ceferin told reporters following a UEFA executive committee meeting, adding that the search for refereeing perfection was futile.

    “Football needs uncertainty because the players make mistakes and the referees on the pitch have to take responsibility, not some people hidden in a van or a building 500 kilometres from the venue,” he said.

    “I can live with the fact that referees are human beings who make mistakes but now when technology makes a mistake, that is a problem,” he said.

    Ceferin said he was not against VAR in principle but said that “we have to make it clearer, we have to make it faster, we have to make it less invasive — but it will stay.”

    One of the biggest sources of controversy has involved offside decisions where VAR officials use gridlines superimposed on the screen, leading to goals being disallowed because a player’s toe or armpit was offside.

    “The line is very thin and it’s drawn by the VAR so it’s the subjective line of an objective fact which is a bit strange,” said Ceferin.

    Other sources of confusion include the new handball rule and how far back in a move VAR officials should go when checking for infringements.

    “Do we check five minutes, do we check 15 minutes?” he said. “The referee never said in the past that we had to go back to a foul seven minutes ago.”

    “We still don’t know which handball is handball, who is drawing the lines, how thick the lines are…..there are many questions ahead.”

  • Italy asks UEFA to reconsider 2020 Champions League final in Turkey

    Italy’s Sports Minister Vincenzo Spadafora has urged European football governing body UEFA to reconsider the decision to play next year’s Champions League final in Istanbul after Turkey’s bloody offensive against the Kurds in northern Syria.

    Spadafora wrote to UEFA President Aleksander Ceferin asking “to consider whether it is appropriate to keep the Champions League final in Istanbul” after Turkey’s “very grave acts against the Kurdish civilian population.”

    In the letter, quoted by Italian news agency ANSA, Spadafora referred to the European Union’s condemnation of Turkish actions and called on European football “to take the most courageous choice and to show, once again, that football is an instrument of peace”.

    The Champions League final is scheduled for May 30, 2020.

  • Champions League qualification: Premier League to lose one spot

    The Premier League is set to lose an automatic Champions League place from 2021.

    The EPL along with Spain, Germany and Italy, has had four automatic places in Europe’s top club competition since last season.

    Now the August play-off for the fourth-placed team in the top flight is likely to return.

    “I think some of the big leagues would be fine if they are all treated in the same way.

    “If you are giving four positions to the Premier League and taking one away from the Bundesliga then you have a problem.

    “The big leagues are prepared to participate in this discussion for something new if they are treated the same,” Lars-Christer Olsson, the president of the European Leagues, said.

  • UEFA to plant 600,000 trees to offset carbon emissions from Euro 2020

    UEFA to plant 600,000 trees to offset carbon emissions from Euro 2020

    European football’s governing body UEFA said it will plant 600,000 trees across 12 countries as part of its commitment to offset carbon emissions from travel to next year’s expanded European Championships.

    UEFA, however, conceded it may have to do more.

    The environmental impact of Euro 2020 will be much greater due to the unique pan-European staging of the event with UEFA president Aleksander Ceferin saying it will “pollute a lot”.

    Instead of hosting matches in one or two countries, as is normal for major tournaments, UEFA is staging the 60th anniversary tournament in 12 countries across the European continent from Dublin, Ireland to Baku in Azerbaijan.

    That format will mean much more travel for fans, officials and players and Ceferin said that while the one-off format meant there was no need for major stadium construction, there was clearly an environmental price to pay.

    The Slovenian said UEFA had teamed up with carbon offset specialists South Pole to offset the estimated 405,000 tonnes of carbon produced by supporters and UEFA staff traveling to games in the tournament.

    But he added that the soccer body now needed to focus on making a bigger contribution on green issues.

    “We probably will have to do more. Not just us officials but the fans will travel a lot. We will pollute a lot because of that. We will think about it,” he told a news conference after UEFA’s executive committee met in the Slovenian capital.

    “We are thinking about doing more for the environment anyway, we have a children’s foundation and do a lot for children around the world… but we didn’t do much about the environment,” said Ceferin, who has been UEFA chief since 2016.

    “We start to think about it now because you can’t protect children if there is no environment for them to live in.”

    UEFA will plant 50,000 trees in each of the 12 host countries for the Euro 2020 tournament which will conclude with the semi-finals and final at Wembley Stadium in London.

    The decision to hold a pan-European tournament was taken before Ceferin came to power at UEFA and he said it was unlikely to be repeated.

    “Not just because of the environmental reasons but also it is very challenging for us to organise an event like that.

    “We have different legislation, we have (a) visa and non-visa system, we have European Union and non-European Union, we have Brexit which we don’t know if (the UK) is non-European Union or not,” he said.

    “It is quite challenging and I don’t think we should organise such a big event.

    “It is symbolically very nice, pan-European, East, West, North, South, it is the 60th anniversary but to do it every time I would say it is too challenging.”

  • UEFA tells teams not to play where women can’t watch

    UEFA tells teams not to play where women can’t watch

    European football’s governing body (UEFA) said on Tuesday it would tell member clubs and national teams not to play games in countries where women do not have full access to stadiums.

    UEFA’s ruling executive committee agreed that it would “recommend to its 55 national associations and all European clubs not to play matches in countries where women have restricted access to stadiums”.

    UEFA did not specify which countries the action would affect.

    Iran, however, has been the focus of attention since a female fan died earlier this month, after setting herself on fire to protest against her arrest for attending a match.

    Soccer’s world governing body FIFA says it has been given assurances by Iranian authorities that their World Cup qualifier against Cambodia in Tehran on Oct. 10 will be open to women.

    UEFA president Aleksander Ceferin said his body did not have the power to punish European teams who might play in countries that do not allow unrestricted access to women.

    He however stressed that there was wide support in his organization for the approach and for not playing teams from those countries.

    “We cannot punish anyone if they play (in these countries) because it is out of our jurisdiction but that doesn’t mean we should be quiet and say we can’t do anything and we (just) develop European football,” said the Slovene.

    “Our advice to 55 associations and all the clubs… will be not to play there or with the teams from those countries where the basic rights of women are not respected.

    “The representatives of the clubs and the leagues agreed with us”.

  • Chukwueze named in UEFA 50 players to watch

    UEFA has named Super Eagles winger, Samuel Chukwueze, among the top 50 young players to keep an eye on in the 2019/2020 season.
    As was the case before the start of the 2018/2019 campaign, only one Nigerian youngster has been picked.
    Explaining why Chukwueze is being tipped for success in the upcoming season, UEFA wrote on their official website: “Precocious winger with UEFA Europa League experience; the Nigeria Football Federation’s young player of the year for 2017/18.”
    The list contains some eye-catching names such as Rhian Brewster (Liverpool), Alphonso Davies (Bayern Munich), Carel Eiting (Ajax), Gedson Fernandes (Benfica), Sean Longstaff (Newcastle) and William Saliba (Arsenal).
    Chukwueze was one of the key players that helped Villarreal avoid relegation last term, netting five goals in 26 appearances in La Liga.
    He was also part of the Nigeria squad that won bronze at the 2019 Africa Cup of Nations and opened his senior account in a 2-1 win vs South Africa.

  • Bayern Munich president Hoeness to retire in November

    Uli Hoeness, the long-serving president of German football club Bayern Munich, is planning to retire and hand over his duties to a former Adidas chief executive in November.
    According to German daily newspaper Bild on Wednesday, Hoeness will not stand for re-election as club president and intends to also quit his role as supervisory board chairman.
    Bild is Germany’s largest-selling newspaper Bild, and it has proved credible in the past.
    According to the report, Hoeness intends to hand over his duties as president to former Adidas CEO Herbert Hainer, who is already a member of the club’s supervisory board.
    Bayern Munich was not immediately available for comment.
    A World Cup and European Championship winner, Hoeness served the club as a player from 1970 to 1979 and took over as general manager, and later president, immediately after his career.
    He is one of the wealthiest figures in German football.
    His departure, along with Oliver Kahn’s planned take-over as general manager starting in 2022, will mark the beginning of a new era at the club.
    In spite of the club’s hegemony in Germany in winning seven Bundesliga titles in a row, Bayern Munich have struggled to keep up at the international level.
    After last winning the UEFA Champions League in 2013, Bayern Munich have failed to reach the final again.
    Their elimination by eventual champions Liverpool in March in the round of 16 of the 2018/2019 season’s competition marked a recent low point.
    Hoeness, aged 67, was re-elected in 2016 as club president after he had spent several months in prison for a multi-million euro tax evasion, a crime Hoeness admitted to German judges.

  • 19m ticket requests for Euro 2020 games, says UEFA

    19m ticket requests for Euro 2020 games, says UEFA

    UEFA has received 19.3 million ticket requests for Euro 2020 matches in the first phase of ticket sales, the European governing body said on Monday.
    UEFA said that 1.9 million requests alone were placed for the July 12, 2020, final at London’s Wembley Stadium, 22 times the stadium capacity.
    Tickets for the London semi-finals and group matches in Munich and Amsterdam were also in high demand.
    The 19.3 million requests by far exceed the 11 million from the same phase at Euro 2016 in France.
    UEFA said that requests came from 213 countries.
    In all, three million tickets are up for sale for next year’s tournament with 24 teams and 51 games in 12 countries.
    UEFA will distribute 1.5 million tickets by lot before the end of the month from the first phase which ended on July 12.
    In the next phase in December after the group draw fans can request tickets via the participating national federations.

  • AC Milan banned from Europe for a year

    AC Milan banned from Europe for a year

    AC Milan have struck a deal with Uefa to serve a one-year ban from European football over breaches of Financial Fair Play rules.

    The club, which finished fifth in Italy’s Serie A, will miss next season’s Europa League.

    Uefa will end its proceedings against the Italians for overspending, said the Court of Arbitration for Sport (Cas).

    “AC Milan is excluded from Uefa club competitions of the sporting season 2019-2020,” said Cas.

    Milan’s ban means AS Roma, who came sixth in the standings, move up to the Europa League group stage while their place in the qualifying rounds is taken by seventh-placed Torino.

    Seven-time European champions Milan finished one point behind local rivals Inter, who took the final Champions League qualifying place.

    Milan previously successfully appealed against a two-year ban imposed by Uefa last summer after being found guilty of breaking spending rules between 2015 and 2017.

    Under Uefa regulations, any club making losses beyond the permitted limits over a three-year period faces possible sanctions, and in some circumstances, a ban.

    Milan were able to take part in last season’s Europa League – going out in the group stage – after appealing to Cas, persuading it that their finances would improve under new ownership.

    BBC