By Andrew Warshaw in Vienna
March 23 – Having already rejected an invitation to take part in a televised debate with the three candidates bidding for his job, FIFA president Sepp Blatter has now declined an offer to go head-to-head with them at the UEFA Congress on Tuesday.
With UEFA president Michel Platini’s re-election a foregone conclusion since he is standing unopposed, much interest focuses on Blatter’s presence in what is very much the enemy camp with UEFA the only one among the six continents that wants to get rid of him.
UEFA, whose leaders are trumpeting all three of Blatter’s election opponents – Prince Ali bin al-Hussein, Luis Figo and Michael van Praag – invited the veteran Swiss to share the podium but he turned them down, preferring to make his trademark opening speech at the Congress.
Last June Blatter described the verbal dressing down he got from a string of UEFA officials, led by van Praag, just before the World Cup as “the most disrespectful thing I have experienced in my entire life.”
UEFA used that session in Brazil to tell the FIFA president in no uncertain terms that he had lost credibility. As a result, perhaps, he is now maintaining a strict strategy of refusing to let himself be exposed in public as he bids for a fifth presidential term that he is expected to win fairly easily on May 29.
Protocol demands Blatter will address the UEFA meeting early on Tuesday’s agenda and while he seems bound to be treated with respect, that will probably be the extent of his involvement.
“Mr Blatter is free to decide whatever he wants,” said UEFA general secretary Gianni Infantino. “We proposed to the other three candidates and Mr Blatter to take the floor and address the associations in a formal way and to tell the members whatever they want. We are very much in favour of debate in terms of how they feel FIFA should be run. Mr Blatter has made it clear he is not campaigning and has therefore decided he is going to speak as the fif’ president and not as one of the candidates.”
German federation president Wolfgang Niersbach is unopposed for a four-year mandate on the executive committee while former Manchester United CEO David Gill is favored to win the FIFA vice presidency reserved for the British nations.
Gill faces Welsh federation leader Trefor Lloyd Hughes in an election that has become more than a little contentious.
The Welsh claims their English counterparts have reneged on a deal agreed in 2011 that would see a Welsh nominee replace Northern Ireland’s Jim Boyce as FIFA vice-president.
Gill said the agreement became void after FIFA reforms which saw the British FIFA vice-presidency elected by all UEFA members instead of just the four home nations. “If there was a deal, that then changed after the reforms,” said Gill. “It may be semantics but it previously was the British vice-president of FIFA. Now it’s UEFA electing a FIFA vice-president.
“We [the FA] very clearly took the view, as did UEFA, that the 54 countries of UEFA will determine that person and I think that makes sense. It’s more democratic to have that person selected by all 54 countries. If there had been that agreement, if it hadn’t been torn up, then obviously it would be the Welsh turn.”
Since being elected to UEFA’s executive committee in 2013, Gill has maintained a low public profile but says if he wins the vice-presidency he will try to use the position to bring about change at the top.
“I aim to use my skills in football around the table and work with my UEFA colleagues to have a greater say and influence in how it operates. In terms of votes it’s quite an important block,” Gill said. “In areas like transparency and decision-making, it’s not going to happen overnight and it’s arguable whether it will happen unless there is a president change. My personal view is that it needs a change at the top to ensure that the required changes take place. I’m not naive enough to think I can change things overnight.”
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