Aleksander Ceferin, herald of the highest authority in European football, cultivates a close relationship with French football. Close to Nasser al-Khelaïfi, president of Paris Saint-Germain, the Slovenian has unfeigned admiration for Karim Benzema. For the lawyer from Ljubljana, the French international is “probably the best centre-forward in the world” et “the most underrated player in history“, as he told AFP on Friday. Operation seduction a few hours before the final of the queen of European competitions on the green rectangle of Saint-Denis (Saturday, 9 p.m.)?
Benzema (34), at the top of his game with 44 goals in 45 matches in a Real jersey this season, is alone at the top of the 2021-2022 Champions League scorer rankings (15 goals), to the point of making is a big favorite for the Ballon d’Or if he wins a fifth European title on Saturday.
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The French international would equal the five trophies won by his former partner Cristiano Ronaldo, one unit behind the record holder Paco Gento (6 titles in C1). And in the event of a double, he could dispossess the Portuguese of one of his many records, that of the number of goals scored in a single Champions League season (17 in 2013-2014), after having evolved for a long time in the service of ” CR7″ at Real.
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“He has always been in the shadow of other playersrecalled Ceferin. But we now see that it is incredible. Sometimes, even though I’m sure he’s not in a position to score, he scores !”.
Asked about the criticisms issued by La Liga on the extension of Kylian Mbappé’s Parisian contract, the UEFA pundit judged “not correct” the remonstrances of the Spanish league, regretting the “insultsThe fact that Mbappé extends Saturday at PSG until 2025 by rejecting the offer of Real Madrid, reigning La Liga champion, has sparked the start of a Franco-Spanish controversy: La Liga boss Javier Tebas has described the tempting Parisian offer of “football insult“before being volleyed on Thursday by his French counterpart Vincent Labrune, who mentioned “calumnies“.
Each league should mind its own business
“I absolutely disagree (with Tebas), commented Ceferin. There are too many insults in football anyway, and I think every League should mind its own business. For me it is not correct that one League criticizes another“By the way, the Slovenian leader said he did not follow the argument of Javier Tebas, according to whom Mbappé would have extended”with large sums of money“despite the heavy losses suffered by PSG in recent seasons.
“From what I know, Real’s offer for Mbappé was similar to that of PSG“, he decided, without wanting to comment on the character”sustainable“financially of the operation. Ceferin is keen to defend the investments of the new rich, like PSG or Manchester City: “We have clear rules. Anyone who follows these rules can play our competitions, not the others. Things change! You can’t say, ‘I’m a traditional club, I have to win for life‘”, he argued, referring to the financial fair play reform which will be implemented with a kind of salary cap limiting the share of income allocated to salaries and player transfers.
Before concluding : “The important thing is that you cannot spend more than 70% of your income on salaries. This should allow clubs to be viable“. UEFA does not sanction PSG, quite the contrary. And seems definitely seduced by the horizon of a football dominated by new faces. At the risk of angering the historical ones.
(With AFP)
Did Mbappé say goodbye to Real? “Who knows, in two or three years…”
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