By Paul Nicholson in the Bahamas
April 16 – If there was any lingering confusion as to where the CONCACAF federation votes were heading, in bulk, at the May election for FIFA president, no-one was left in any doubt after an extraordinary show of support from the floor for Sepp Blatter at the confederation’s congress in the Bahamas today.
It must have been a painful experience for rival presidential candidates Michael van Praag, Prince Ali bin Al-Hussein and Louis Figo as 11 confederations took the microphone – some for painful lengths of time – but each committing their federations and encouraging their colleagues to vote for Blatter.
These weren’t the tiny island Caribbean nations that the presidential candidates believed the previous day they could split away from supporting Blatter at the Caribbean Football Union (CFU) congress.
They included Mexico, Jamaica, Panama, Trinidad, and Cuba – football leaders across the region.
Blatter will not secure 100% of the CONCACAF vote. Notably he won’t get the Dutch speaking Caribbean or, perhaps importantly, the US. But the US, for once, looks to be sitting on the wrong side of the global power divide.
A realisation that is unlikely to be lost on its president Sunil Gulati, who nominated Prince Ali, and who said that the 11 who spoke didn’t represent the full membership. Perhaps not, but there wasn’t enough time for everyone to speak and of those who did speak no-one spoke against Blatter, not even the US. CONCACAF has 41 members and 35 have a vote at FIFA.
If this was stage-managed, it was no more so than the grilling Blatter took at the UEFA Congress.
But there was a message in this to UEFA, its president Michel Platini who was on the stage behind Blatter, and to UEFA’s federations in particular, and it was coming from the new world to the old. One wonders if they will fully understand it and fully accept that the principle of equality is something that CONCACAF’s members will not compromise on, whatever their size or leverage.
Perhaps the message was best summed up by the final speaker from Cuba – a female. Promising to be brief she compared the situation to that of a match where the candidates were the players and the federations were the coaches and the second half had kicked off. “As coaches we are not going to take him out of the game,” she said.
CONCACAF president Jeffrey Webb drew the eulogies to a close saying “the members are sending a message that CONCACAF will continue to support president Blatter”‘
And if a final image was needed to sum up what took place, it would be of a downbeat looking Louis Figo checking out of his hotel with his suitcase. The rest of the congress were heading for a BBQ on the beach to close proceedings.
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