Dutchman Michael van Praag, Spaniard Angel Villar and Slovenian Aleksandar Ceferin will contest the presidency of UEFA in September, the European football governing body confirmed on Friday.
UEFA said the trio, all heads of their country’s respective football federations, were the only candidates to have submitted their bids by Wednesday’s deadline for the Sept. 14 election.
The election scheduled for Athens in Greece has been called to find a replacement for Frenchman Michel Platini, who has been banned for four years for ethics violations.
Platini was banned, along with former FIFA president Sepp Blatter, over payment of 2.0 million Swiss francs (about $2.02 million) made to the Frenchman by FIFA.
The payment was with Blatter’s approval in 2011 for work done a decade earlier.
He has however denied any wrongdoing.
The eventual winner of the election will have to urgently address the issue of the European Champions League, UEFA’s flagship competition.
The possibility of a so-called Super League for elite clubs, or a mechanism which guarantees big clubs a captive place in the Champions League, has been discussed at private meetings.
UEFA needs to finalise the format of all its club competitions for the 2018-2021 cycle by the end of this year.
Van Praag acknowledged when announcing his candidacy that UEFA has fallen into an impasse in Platini’s absence and needs to tackle the Super League threat.
Villar, who has headed the Spanish federation since 1988 and has been re-elected seven times, announced his bid on Tuesday, one day before the deadline.
Ceferin says he has the backing of 13 Eastern European federations, four from the Nordic countries, plus Italy.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that his rivals have not made any comments about their support.
Platini was elected in 2015 and the winner will complete his mandate which runs until 2019.
UEFA has said the candidates will have to complete an integrity check, conducted by football’s governing body FIFA.(Reuters/NAN)