‘I had to leave’: concerns raised over state of Uefa amid cronyism claims

The Champions League final on 28 May between Liverpool and Real Madrid, hosted by Uefa at the Stade de France in Paris, promised to be a gleaming showcase for the heights of European football, culture and heritage. The final was the first held in a full stadium since the pandemic, and since the elite competition was saved for Uefa – the confederation of Europe’s national football associations, including the English FA – from last year’s “super league” breakaway attempt by 12 top clubs.

But the near-disaster that enveloped the 75,000 people attending the match instead exposed a nightmarish mess of calamitous planning, disorganisation, brutal French policing and crime in the deprived Saint-Denis area. Amid the fallout, and outrage at the efforts by Uefa and the French authorities to blame Liverpool supporters, closer scrutiny has since turned on the performance of Uefa itself under its president, the Slovenian lawyer Aleksander Ceferin.

The spotlight quickly turned to the appointment last year of Ceferin’s best friend, Zeljko Pavlica, as Uefa’s head of safety and security. For this vital role, bearing overall responsibility for the most prominent European matches in stadiums with huge crowds, Uefa undertook no formal recruitment process when the previous, widely respected departmental head, Kenny Scott, retired. The Paris horror-show was also the first Champions League final with a full stadium since Pavlica took over the department.

The Guardian then reported that a safety consultant, Steve Frosdick, had resigned from Uefa earlier this year complaining, among other criticisms, that the safety department had become corroded by cronyism. Uefa points to a range of significant achievements since Ceferin was elected president