Third meeting of regional football associations held

The Football Association of Montenegro hosted the third regional meeting of football associations in Budva on Friday. The meeting, held at the “Avala” hotel, is the first to include, in addition to representatives from Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Croatia, Macedonia, Slovenia, and Serbia, the presidents and general secretaries of Albania, Bulgaria, Greece, Cyprus, and Romania, thus expanding the group of regional associations to 11 members, reports the BH news agency Patria.

The new members signed a memorandum of cooperation, initially signed by six associations at the founding meeting held in Ljubljana at the end of January this year, which envisages strengthening friendly relations, preserving integrity, and fighting all negative phenomena in football.

During the meeting, association representatives paid tribute and expressed gratitude to UEFA President Michel Platini for all he has done for the prosperity of European and world football, and they express their full support in his fight to prove his innocence and his candidacy for FIFA president.

At the same time, the aforementioned associations are sending an official request to the Ethics Committee and all FIFA bodies to act on the requests of the FIFA Executive Committee and, in the specific case of UEFA President Michel Platini, respecting the statutory framework of action and procedure, to make valid decisions in an expedited procedure, especially respecting the deadlines related to the upcoming electoral process in FIFA, so as not to abuse their authority, influence, and create it, thereby causing great damage to the sport of football.

The meeting expressed satisfaction with the work of the UEFA administration and conveyed absolute support to preserve the continuity of the work of the European football house in the future. Participants supported the proposal to increase the UEFA Executive Committee by two new members, who would come from national associations.

The next regional meeting of these associations will be held at the end of January next year, and the Football Association of Serbia will be the host.

The Football Association of Montenegro was represented at the meeting by President Dejan Savićević, General Secretary Momir Đurđevac, Head of the Legal Department Mladen Ivanović, and Security Commissioner Dragoljub Sekulić. In addition to them, the meeting was attended by Tomislav Karadžić, Nebojša Ivković, Ivan Ćurković (Serbia), Ilčo Gjorgijoski, Muamet Sejdini, Vladimir Gaševski, Robert Marković (Macedonia), Aleksandar Čeferin, Aleš Zavrl, Ilija Kitić, Željko Pavlica (Slovenia), Davor Šuker, Damir Vrbanović (Croatia), Elvedin Begić, Darko Ljubojević, Ivan Beus, Jasmin Baković (Bosnia and Herzegovina), Edvin Libohova, Ilir Šulku, Denis Bastari (Albania), Kostas Kucukumnis, Jorgos Kumas (Cyprus), Razvan Burleanu, Radu Visan (Romania), Borislav Popov (Bulgaria), Jorgos Kircikis, Aleksia Kiriciki (Greece), and the head of the UEFA Department for Cooperation with National Associations Zoran Laković.