‘ABBA’ on agenda as Uefa meet in Cardiff

Uefa’s executive committee meets in Cardiff today with new rules for bidding contests, penalty shootouts and sin bins on the agenda.

This will be the first meeting of the so-called Exco since half of its 16 members were either elected for the first time or given new terms at April’s annual congress in Helsinki.

That means Ireland’s John Delaney will take his seat at European football’s top table for the first time, as will ex-poland star Zbigniew Boniek, two days before his former club Juventus take on Real Madrid in the Champions League final at the Principality Stadium.

Saturday’s match is undoubtedly the highlight of Cardiff’s four-day Champions League festival, which runs from today to Sunday and includes the women’s final between French rivals Lyon and Paris St Germain at the Cardiff City Stadium this evening.

Today’s meeting is chaired by Uefa president Aleksander Ceferin, and European football’s bosses are expected to further discuss his plans for a more transparent bidding process to stage Uefa club and country competitions, as well as allocating more funds to grassroots projects.

They will also review the recent experiment at the European Under-17 Championships in Croatia to change the order in which teams take penalties in shoot-outs from ABAB to ABBA.

This idea was first mooted at a meeting of the International Football Association Board in March and was used twice in Croatia, with Spain beating Germany in a semi-final after taking the first penalty and then overcoming England in the final, having taken the second and third penalties.

Another innovation Uefa is eager to press on with is the introduction of temporary dismissals, or sin bins, in amateur, disability and youth football. The Exco may also approve plans to give member associations more freedom to tweak the rules for substitutes in non-elite football, to enable more players to take part.