UEFA President: Everyone showed solidarity during pandemic

UEFA President Aleksander Čeferin gave interview for the upcoming issue of the UEFA Direct magazine, he talks about UEFA's leadership during these extraordinary times, and explains why the spirit of solidarity and sacrifice shown by football's various stakeholders offers a positive lesson for the future.

Key stakeholders have had to sacrifice something. UEFA has sacrificed part of its season to enable the completion of ongoing domestic leagues by the end of July, with UEFA then completing its own 2019/20 club competition season in August. The leagues agreed to this, and the solidarity of the clubs will be equally important for the national-team window in September.

We've seen a great deal of unity and solidarity between UEFA, national associations, clubs and leagues. That's been a quality which you can see in the decisions taken. There's been a real overall willingness to reach compromises.

We, as a governing body, have had to bear in mind that we must take care of all of football – not just UEFA's competitions. Consequently, we've tried to lead the way in Europe, and I think we've done so quite successfully. I think the decision to postpone EURO 2020 to next year was a key moment, because it was taken at quite an early stage. Everybody understood that we did this to help the other stakeholders and, once more, I must underline the spirit of total unity and solidarity that was forthcoming.

The UEFA president said he had no doubt  the current season in the European Cups would end this year:I believed it from the first moment. You should always be optimistic, and if something like this crisis happens, you must have a plan ready. At the present time, we will be playing matches without spectators until further notice. We will not take any risks.

I think it's hard to say at this stage what UEFA will learn, and what the world will learn. We'll certainly all learn that we're very fragile, and that a virus can actually bring the world virtually to a standstill… and that means football as well. But we'll all come through this crisis, and I'm sure that we'll emerge stronger and wiser than before. The football community has shown not just unity and solidarity, but also friendship and respect. We're communicating with each other every day, and we must continue to do so in the future. We might have disagreements, of course, but as long as we communicate and are all ready to sacrifice something, then we'll be on the right path.