By Andrew Warshaw in Vienna
March 23 – Any suggestion that peace and harmony reigns at UEFA was dramatically undermined today when European football’s governing body launched an unprecedented rebuke on one of its own powerbrokers.
For once Sepp Blatter was not man at the centre of UEFA’s ire as Germany’s outgoing Theo Zwanziger was publicly denounced by UEFA general secretary Gianni Infantino for shirking his responsibilities and heaping embarrassment on himself.
Zwanziger was elected by UEFA four years ago to be a member of FIFA’s executive committee and has been acting as the overseer of FIFA’s reform process and statute changes – as well as monitoring workers’ rights in Qatar.
In other words, a pretty big fish in Blatter’s organisation, even to the extent that he was given a platform by FIFA last week to make a passionate goodbye speech to reporters, summing up his achievements.
Which makes Infantino’s intervention, at a press conference following UEFA’s pre-Congress executive committee meeting, even more remarkable.
In recent weeks, Zwanziger has hit the headlines for all the wrong reasons as a result of an internal spat with his German successor in the UEFA and FIFA heirarchy, German FA president Wolfgang Niersbach.
Zwanziger filed a complaint to FIFA’s ethics committee questioning whether Niersbach’s pay and pension broke any rules in terms of a potential conflict of interest. The pair have dramatically fallen out and after the case was thrown out, matters came to a head on the eve of the UEFA Congress in Vienna.
“The executive committee is really sad and upset about this situation and fully rejects the actions of Mr Zwanziger,” said Infantino. “For a (former) president of the German FA to make such a challenge with obviously no chance of success, this cannot be understood by anyone.
“Mr Zwanziger was elected by the UEFA congress four years ago and according to our statutes represents the European associations. But we have not seen him around in any of our meetings or committees for the last two years.”
Infantino said trying to make trouble just landed Zwanziger himself in even more.
“When speaking about good governance, democracy and procedures, part of that should be to participate … and to accept decisions taken in an open, transparent and democratic way and not to get angry and upset. That isn’t the way one likes. At the end of the day it’s embarrassing for him.”
Turning to World Cup slots for European teams, a topic of constant contentious debate, Infantino said the continent deserved at least one more in 2018 after being allocated 13 in Brazil.
“I think there is a big chance that we will have more than 13 because if you look at it objectively, based on facts, 19 of the top 32-ranked associations are European,” he said.
FIFA’s executive committee will hold an extra-ordinary meeting on May 30 to decide how many places each continent will get in Russia.
“The winners of the last three World Cups were three (different) European teams, so I think it’s absolutely objective and fair to be asking for one more position only,” Infantino added. “We could ask for more than one (extra), but one would already be a good sign. At the end of the day, to crown the world champions you must have the best teams.”
Infantino was not discouraged by Europe’s performance in Brazil where, although Germany won the tournament, eight of the continent’s 13 representatives fell at the group stage.
“I think South America certainly also deserves the number of teams they have in the competition,” he said. “You can argue whatever way you want but then there are facts.”
“It’s not like the Olympic Games where the importance is to participate, in football the important thing is to win and the sporting results are clearly for Europe whichever way you want to argue it.”
The fact is, however, that every Continent is bidding to gain more slots but there are only so many that can go round. “I cannot imagine a World Cup with less than 13 European teams…The absolute minimum is the status quo,” said Infantino.
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