By Paul Nicholson in the Bahamas
April 16 – For anyone taking the global annual football confederation congress tour, the Caribbean is the current stop on the schedule which will end in Zurich in May with the main event of the election of the FIFA president. And as in previous elections, the Caribbean is having its day in the FIFA political sun.
While the CONCACAF Congress (today) is the centerpiece of the meetings at the Atlantis Resort, there was a warm-up event yesterday in the form of the Caribbean Football Union (CFU) general meeting.
In attendance were all three challengers to Sepp Blatter in the election race – Prince Ali bin Al-Hussein, Michael van Praag and Louis Figo. While the challengers were there as observers, Blatter was on-hand as FIFA president to officially open the meeting.
In the European cheerleading vanguard for the pre-dominantly European-backed and strategised contenders were UEFA president Michel Platini and, perhaps surprisingly, his general secretary Gianni Infantino.
Caribbean federations have been king makers in the past with their so-called ‘block vote’ engineered by former president Jack Warner who ran a totalitarian regime.
But while the idea of the block vote may currently be a thing of the past – the Dutch-speaking federations have already declared for van Praag – Blatter’s rivals who clearly sense an opportunity to split the Caribbean and general CONCACAF vote may have read the tarot cards a little over-enthusiastically.
Talking and listening to federation presidents in the convention hallways, Insideworldfootball believes Blatter can still sleep comfortably in the knowledge that the bulk of the Caribbean vote will be behind him.
With 25 votes from CFU federations, we estimate that 20 will likely align with Blatter.
CFU president Gordon Derrick, who doesn’t have a vote in May and refused to be drawn on which way the Caribbean vote would go, says Caribbean people are generally loyal and he wouldn’t be surprised to see the bulk of the islands behind one candidate, though the CFU will not be mandating a candidate.
Speaking to the CFU members Blatter stressed the importance of the 31-member organisation, emphasising that Anguilla and Monserrat, for example, have parity with the ‘bigger’ footballing nations. His message was clear that they have a role to play and that they have parity on the FIFA stage.
“You have the association with the least number of people in each country. But the members have the same rights and obligations (as the big nations)…When I started in FIFA, CONCACAF only had a few members. Now they have a lot of members.”
It is organising these members into a competitive force on the pitch that is the challenge that the CFU has taken up.
CONCACAF president Jeffrey Webb said in his remarks to the congress that they should “reflect on where we have come from. Just two years ago in December 2012, 31 brave men and women from the Caribbean travelled to Zurich for the reinvention of Caribbean football. It was the start of a transformation process to get to where we are today.
“The CFU has made great strides…it met the challenges and there are many challenges ahead.” Webb said that with “solidarity’ he was confident they meet these new challenges.
“The Caribbean is the heart and soul of CONCACAF. It is a special area for football. But it has the smallest national budgets in the entire world. That is the reality,” he said.
Speaking to his members Derrick said he could see that progress was being made within the region when nations like the US Virgin Islands and British Virgin Islands can challenge traditionally more powerful members like Barbados and Domenica. He made the points that member federations had to think big and that they needed to sow the seeds of development to achieve the CFU’s ambitions for its members.
“Last time I asked you to look at yourselves. Stop thinking local but think global Think you are world class and you will be world class. I see development in our region,” said Derrick.
“Reap what you sow,” he continued. “What are we sowing? Are we sowing the seeds for greatness… it is not the size of your country but the quality of your players… We want top quality, we want world class. As a region it is time to move beyond the rhetoric. We must embrace our future with passion and performance.”
When president of the Bahamas FA Anton Sealey warmly welcomed the delegates to the Bahamas he promised them a spectacular FIFA Beach Soccer World Cup in 2017 and encouraged them to “at least get your feet in the sea and some sand in your shoes”.
For the FIFA electioneers the issue is more a case of finding out how warm the Caribbean waters are for them and whether they could infact end up with sand thrown in their faces.
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