By Andrew Warshaw, chief correspondent
January 29 – Just over a week after announcing he was running for FIFA president, Jerome Champagne has given the strongest hint yet that he will withdraw rather than stand against Sepp Blatter – and that he would readily accept a new position under his former boss if he fails to land the top job.
In an exclusive interview with Insideworldfootball, Champagne also says he has no regrets about announcing his candidature in London despite receiving an at times torrid grilling by the notoriously hard-hitting English media.
Champagne is due to announce imminently where the early stages of his lobbying will take him. But before starting off on the campaign trail, he revealed to Insideworldfootball that he met Blatter face to face to tell the veteran Swiss of his ambition to succeed him in May next year.
“Three days before London, I met Blatter one on one in Zurich and informed him what I would be doing. It was my duty,” said Champagne who served as both deputy Secretary General of FIFA and Director of International Relations under Blatter before being unceremoniously pushed out in 2010 for allegedly going beyond his remit.
How did Blatter take the news? “That’s my secret and I won’t tell you,” answered Champagne who admitted, however, that the meeting took place away from FIFA headquarters. “Time will tell what happens in the next few months.”
Champagne, whose dealings with Blatter in recent years have mainly been linked with his role as a consultant for various territories including Palestine and Kosovo, refused to say whether their most recent meeting was the first time the pair had sat alone since officially parting company four years ago.
During his London launch, the 55-year-old former French diplomat surprised observers by admitting he would not be able to beat Blatter in a straight election fight. That prompted speculation that he had perhaps formed a private allegiance with Blatter in order to eventually return to high office at FIFA.
Champagne’s latest comments will only serve to fuel the theory that he will pull out of the presidential race and instead back Blatter if the veteran Swiss decides to go for a fifth mandate. Another possible scenario being floated is that Blatter might end up lobbying for Champagne if he decides to call it a day after 17 years at the helm.
“It’s very clear that I’m passionate about what I did at FIFA during 11 years, a mission that was abruptly severed,” said Champagne. “If I am standing as FIFA president, it’s because I want to go back. For the moment Mr Blatter is not a candidate. Whatever happens in a few months time will be tackled by me at the right moment.”
Asked to pinpoint exactly the time he decided to run, Champagne, whose detailed on-line manifesto focuses on redressing football’s imbalances and inequality from a financial, sporting and political standpoint and cleaning up the game both within the FIFA hierarchy and on the pitch, explained: “It was process rather than one specific moment.”
“Step by step I got more and more convinced that if I wanted to change things, push the debate forward and address the real issues, I had to do it as a candidate.”
Despite funding his own campaign, Champagne insists he has a strong network of advisors. He refuses, for the moment, to name them. “In the coming weeks and months I will raise money from supporters and will hopefully make public who they are,” he said.
Symbolically, Champagne’s candidature launch took place on the site where the English Football Association was founded 150 years ago. He still believes it was the right venue despite English football’s troubled image in the corridors of power at FIFA.
“I would do it again without hesitation,” he said. “Ninety-five percent of people I consulted advised me to do it in London. I love English football. I am absolutely convinced that if we want to change football in the future, FIFA and the English football community have to overcome their misunderstandings.”
“I was expecting exactly the kind of response I got and I have no problem with that. But if you look beyond the first part of what some people wrote, it came across that I am honest, passionate and have fresh ideas. I welcome criticism but at the end of the day, most of the global reporting was positive.”
Champagne, whose network of contacts is second to none following his decade at FIFA, says he has a clear vote-winning strategy in mind. But he is adopting a drip by drip approach in terms of making it public to prevent the media, as well as potential rivals such as UEFA boss Michel Platini, from knowing too much too soon.
Platini will not decide whether he, too, will stand for FIFA president until after the World Cup. Most observers think it unlikely and last week he appeared to have little or no knowledge of Champagne’s intentions even though his compatriot’s launch was widely publicised across all continents of the world. “In all honesty I didn’t see it or read a great deal about it,” Platini told reporters in what many interpreted as being somewhat dismissive of Champagne’s ambitions.
Champagne is reluctant to get drawn into a war of words but there is clearly no love lost between the pair.
“He has a right to his opinion but if he hasn’t seen or heard anything, it’s probably because he has not opened any newspapers or seen any TV because it was everywhere from Brazil to Mali, from the United States to France. Maybe he was isolated for a few days.”
While Champagne won’t reveal, at this early stage, which of FIFA’s 209 national federations may support him, he is convinced the backing of Pele – promoted in a pre-recorded video at last week’s launch – is being underplayed in some quarters and will be of crucial benefit to him.
“Pele is Pele, period. He’s more than just an icon and he has a vision for the future. I’m supported by the most important player in the history of the game. Everything else will come later.”
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