Bin Hammam will make decision over FIFA Presidency within 10 days

By Andrew Warshaw

March 10 – Asian football supremo Mohamed Bin Hammam will decide within 10 days whether to challenge Sepp Blatter for the Presidency of FIFA.

Bin Hammam has until March 31 to show his hand and is understood to have been encouraged by senior figures from inside the English Football Association allegedly pledging to support any credible candidate to Blatter.

“The FA declaration is very encouraging,” he told The Guardian.

“Now people expect me to say something.”

Asked about whether he would stand against Blatter, he replied: “People have to try change.

“Change is good.

“Within 10 days I will formally declare whether I will stand or not.

“I am happy with [support in] most Confederations but I don’t know about Europe and how they will deal with my candidacy.

“Europe is the core of football.

“I would like now to make a real assessment in Europe.”

Here lies his dilemma.

To declare within 10 days means he would have to do so before the UEFA Congress on March 22 in Paris.

Yet that is exactly the time when he could gauge the very kind of support he would need from Europe.

At 61, Bin Hammam is 14 years younger than Blatter, who turns 75 today and would be 79 before the end of a fourth Presidential term.

But to muddy the waters even further, Bin Hammam, President of the Asian Football Confederation, cannot even count of the majority support from within his own ranks.

The 25 AFC countries who earlier this year backed Jordan’s victorious Prince Ali bin Al Hussein over long-standing incumbent Chung Mong-joon of South Korea to become Asia’s FIFA vice-president pledged they would also support Blatter on June 1 in Zurich – against any candidate.

The Prince is a known Blatter ally whereas Chung was very much in the Bin Hammam camp.