UEFA President Aleksander Ceferin attacks Europe: “Freedom of expression no longer exists”

UEFA president Aleksander Ceferin has hit out at political correctness in the West, saying “freedom of speech no longer exists” and saying he finds “preaching” by European politicians claiming “Europe is the best” “annoying”.

In an interview with Slovenian daily Delo published on Sunday, the head of European football's governing body expressed fears for the future of Europe. "We are all fed up with political correctness . Here in the Western world, freedom of speech no longer exists. You can no longer say what you think," Ceferin said.

“On the one hand, there are the right-wing populists, who have simple rhetoric: immigrants take your jobs and commit crimes, LGBT propaganda will make families non-existent, destroy your children, and so on. It is such simplistic populist rhetoric that anyone can understand it. On the other hand, almost all mainstream Western politics and most mainstream media address people from an arrogant, intellectual height,” he continued.

"This mainstream is saying: 'Don't you dare discuss this or discuss with us'. That's why some people think that right-wing populists are revolutionaries who oppose the mainstream. But they are not. Mainstream politics should ask itself what it is doing wrong for all this to happen," he added.

Ceferin also said that the political situation is as dangerous as it was in the 1930s before World War II. “We have reached a situation where some major countries can take parts of other countries’ territory and publicly discuss what they are going to take and who they are going to attack. This is dangerous,” he said.

"I don't know if European leaders realise how dangerous the situation is and how urgent it is for them to talk calmly among themselves in the interest of the European Union. They are there to protect the citizens of the European Union, not to serve their own interests," he continued.

He also commented on the situation with the war in Ukraine. “The representatives of the European Union have been saying for a long time that they will not discuss with Russia the end of the war in Ukraine. Now we are in a situation where the United States is talking to Russia and the European politicians themselves are wondering why they are talking without consulting them. They should understand that there are bigger interests at stake. Their sermons to the rest of the world about how Europe is the best annoy me,” he said.

The UEFA president also said that in football, plans to bring back the Russian under-17 teams were "brutally attacked by the dominant political establishment."

He also referred to the debate on human rights surrounding the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, which he described as "a typical example, without a doubt, of the preaching of European political populists, who do not recognise different cultures, different religions, do not talk about non-discrimination, nor understand that different people have different customs in different environments."