Football chiefs heal problems piece by peace
PEACE broke out as football’s power brokers sought to survive the crisis engulfing the sport.
UEFA president Aleksander Ceferin and FIFA president Gianni Infantino have been at loggerheads, jostling for power, while the leagues are at odds with the European Club Association over Champions League reforms, yet they all shared the same goal this time.
The 55 national associations voted unanimously to postpone Euro 2020 for a year to clear a path so that domestic leagues even stand a chance of being finished as well as devising a plan to play the Champions League and Europa League
Ceferin said: “This is the biggest crisis that football faced in history but it’s also a possibility to reset some things.
“I’m optimistic about the future. We will have to be a bit careful at the beginning, but we are capable of coming back.
“Postponing Euro 2020 is the only chance to get a chance for the national leagues and all the club competitions to finish.
“I still think that together we will finish this and come out stronger than ever. I also saw and heard some fake news that UEFA will advise leagues to finish the championships now and decide that the winners are the ones who are number one now. That’s not true. Our goal is to finish the leagues and we didn’t recommend anything like that to any association or any league.”
‘You would have got very skinny odds on Rangers and Hearts putting self-interest before the biggest threat to the general public in our lifetime’
season to be declared null and void is a show of undignified surrender.
“It’s laughable when they’ve been beaten by Hearts and Hamilton – both bottom at the time – and on current form they would be nearer Motherwell than Celtic. Safety is paramount and the league should be declared over but they don’t need to hand Celtic the trophy because we’ve already got it.”
Gers boss Steven Gerrard claimed football must be secondary as the Covid-19 pandemic grips the world, although on the football side of things said he was against playing games behind closed doors.
said: “I was hoping we’d get a wee rest from Gerrard mouthing off given there’s no football but I was wrong.”
said: “Gerrard doesn’t want a null-and-void season as his beloved Liverpool wouldn’t win their first title in 30 years and he doesn’t want Celtic to be awarded the title up here?
“He doesn’t want an extended season merging into a new one and he doesn’t want games played behind closed doors. What exactly does he want?”
In other news at Rangers, we exclusively revealed Paisley-born Far East real estate tycoon Stuart Gibson is set to lead a multimillion-pound investment at Ibrox.
It comes at a time it emerged Ulsterman David Graham will become the club’s new PR chief, however, the DUP councillor and Orange Order member’s appointment has raised a few eyebrows.
said: “Woke up to good news with new blood coming on to the Rangers board only to have it ruined when I see who is coming into the media communications role.
“This is a backwards step and exactly the reason big firms don’t want to be associated with us while Celtic do deals with world giants.”
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