As the deadline for nominations passed on Monday 26 October 2015, eight names emerged as having filed their papers with FIFA’s electoral committee - including the necessary names of five supporting member associations.
There are three nominations from Europe, two from Asia, two from Africa and one from CONCACAF. The two confederations without candidates are South America and Oceania.
Let’s have a quick look at the candidates (unofficial as they are as I write, given that FIFA is yet to officially name them):
MICHEL PLATINI (Europe): Currently under a 90-day suspension for suspected corruption by FIFA’s ethics committee. It’s hard to see how he can make a comeback from here even if he is exonerated. He cannot campaign while under suspension. I believe his chances are shot. But he may have a plan. Read below.
JEROME CHAMPAGNE (Europe): A former FIFA deputy secretary general, well versed in diplomacy and FIFA administration. He is a Sepp Blatter supported candidate who took a fall in 2009 after he supported Shaikh Salman in an election against Mohamed Bin Hammam and lost his job (presumably at the behest of Bin Hammam). He is the rank outsider according to the bookmakers.
GIANNI INFANTINO (Europe): A last minute nomination as UEFA try to shore up their influence. A capable general secretary of the European body and a staunch Platini loyalist, could he be a ploy to engineer a later comeback by his UEFA boss? Here is a plausible scenario. Infantino wins in February, later resigns and the exonerated and otherwise popular Platini is elected president. For that grand scheme to work he will need the wide support beyond Europe that Platini enjoyed before he was suspended. This might be a bit fanciful. More likely is that once Infantino is eliminated it will throw its weight behind Salman.
PRINCE ALI (Asia): The brother of Jordan’s ruling king is a young clean skin who did reasonably well in coming second in a two-horse race against Blatter in May, gaining 73 votes. But then he relied on the anti-Blatter vote which, with Blatter gone, is no longer there. He is supported by the US, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, UAE and Palestine as well as his own Jordanian FA. It’s hard to see where the rest of his votes will be coming from even though the bookies have him as outright favourite on even money.
SHEIKH SALMAN (Asia): This is the most worrying and paradoxical of the candidates given FIFA’s desperate need for moral and political reform (see more below). The AFC president was seen as a consensus candidate, even by the Europeans, until recently. But that changed when, after speculation that he might run, the western press went agog by raising his alleged past misdeeds, including allegations that he organised the jailing and torturing of political dissidents during Bahrain’s political uprising in 2011, which he denies. Europe and probably much of Africa has now turned away from him. Still rated as second favourite.
TOKYO SEXWALE (Africa): The little known South African former Robben Island inmate and diamond mine mogul could cause a shock. He has been active in football as both a FIFA committee man and with the South African FA. He enjoys much respect, despite having been a member of his country’s now tainted 2010 FIFA World Cup organising committee, and if all of Africa swings behind him he can have a serious impact.
The remaining two candidates DAVID NAKHID (Concacaf), an ex-Trinidad and Tobago national team player and MUSA BILITI (Africa), president of the Liberian FA, are unlikely to survive the opening rounds of voting.
There is political chicanery going on, of that there is no doubt. But that in itself is not surprising given what a political hotbed FIFA is and always has been. What is more worrying is the candidacy of Sheikh Salman whose background makes him a highly dubious figure as potential chief and guide of an organisation desperate for reform and to demonstrate at long last that it has a moral compass.
Salman, the man who backed Blatter, now suspended and under investigation, and then backed Platini, now suspended and under investigation, is now backing himself. You have to wonder about his wisdom in backing candidates.
Salman is now of course but set up to look into the role of athletes in the 2011 uprising against the regime is undeniable and still public knowledge in his country. It is this committee, say human rights groups, which jailed and tortured athletes in the subsequent crackdown.
Salman’s denial is not enough. The human rights group claims need to be further investigated and, in the least, probed by FIFA’s ethics committee, who will conduct the integrity checks on all candidates.
The good Sheikh will have other hairy questions to answer during the integrity checks. In a 2012 audit of the AFC’s books by Price Waterhouse Coopers, the auditing firm uncovered possible bribery, non-transparency and tax evasion when the AFC awarded $1 billion worth of marketing rights to the Singapore-based World Sports Group. The PwC report formed the basis for the lifetime ban given to former AFC president Mohamed Bin Hammam by the FIFA ethics committee.
Yet, as , Salman squashed the PwC report and failed to act on the recommendations related to transparency and accountability. WSG retain the marketing contract and Salman’s only response was to fire his general secretary, Dato' Alex Soosay, for having destroyed relevant documents, three years later.
Then there was the matter of the 2009 AFC elections in which, as reported by SBS, Salman challenged Bin Hammam for a seat on the FIFA Exco and was accused by the incumbent of vote buying. In an investigative SBS report, the then head of Philipines football, Jose Mari Martinez, corroborated the allegations, on camera, confirming his association was offered bribes to vote for Salman. This matter, too, is yet to be investigated and needs to be raised during the integrity checks on Salman.
Salman is closely allied with Sheikh Ahmad Al-Fahad Al-Sabah of Kuwait who is also on the FIFA Exco and, as president of the Olympic Council of Asia (OCA), is probably the most powerful man in Asian sport. If Salman gets up as president, football will be controlled by two feudal monarchies. So much for progress, not to mention equality, democracy and accountability.
Such concerns by western media will doubtless be met by accusations of racism from the Salman camp, which is what Salman and Ahmad accused the Sunday Times of for daring to suggest the Qataris bought the 2022 World Cup. That of course doesn’t hold water given that there has not been a media critique raised against Price Ali of Jordan, another candidate who hails from an Arab royal family.
Suffice to say that Sheikh Salman makes Sepp Blatter look like a meek suburban priest and his presidency will appear to be a massive backward lurch for the heavily tainted governing body.
Indeed, of this group of eight candidates no one stands out as a person of real authority, charisma, true vision and one who doesn’t want the position for prestige, influence and power but only to provide a service for football.
Of course what FIFA now needs is not a president but a messiah. But messiahs are apparently a bit hard to come by in the 21st century.
