Friday’s shenanigans at FIFA prompted a number of sporting sages to prophesy the demise of Sepp Blatter well before the February 26 Congress that is supposed to elect a new FIFA President. I wonder though if the big loser might not turn out to be Michel Platini.
Not long after publication of a statement by the Swiss Attorney General’s office revealing inter alia that Blatter was suspected of a “disloyal payment of SFr2 million” to Platini at the expense of FIFA “allegedly made for work performed between January 1999 and June 2002” and “executed in February 2011”, I got a Tweet from the media relations director of bookmaker William Hill. This revealed that the odds on the UEFA head becoming the next permanent FIFA President had been lengthened from 1/3 to 11/10. This still left the Frenchman as favourite ahead of Prince Ali Bin Al Hussein of Jordan at 7/4 and African Football Confederation (CAF) President Issa Hayatou at 7/1, but it was a significant change. And while, as I write this, Hill no longer seems to be offering betting on this market, I note that a couple of rival betting organisations have now installed Prince Ali as favourite.
Platini quickly issued his own statement on Friday dismissing any suggestion of malpractise with regard to the alleged payment, saying: “Today I was asked by the Swiss authorities to provide information relating to the ongoing investigations surrounding FIFA. I have always been open to supporting the relevant bodies and authorities in their investigative work and therefore cooperated fully. Regarding the payment that was made to me, I wish to state that this amount relates to work which I carried out under a contract with FIFA and I was pleased to have been able to clarify all matters relating to this with the authorities.”
I have no reason to doubt any of this. And the Frenchman is unlikely to care whether he is the punters’ favourite. What should be a source of concern, however, is whether these latest surreal developments in the FIFA saga do anything to weaken what had appeared to be a burgeoning alliance, to the benefit of his candidacy, between his own European constituency and Asian football leaders. This in spite of the likely presence of at least two Asian candidates, Prince Ali and South Korea’s Chung Mong-joon, in the race. (Entrants have until October 26 to submit their candidacies, which must be supported by at least five national associations.)
I have written before about what appeared to be the flourishing relations between Platini and Kuwait’s Sheikh Ahmad Al-Fahad Al-Sabah, a relatively new FIFA Executive Committee member, who is President of the Association of National Olympic Committees (ANOC), an International Olympic Committee (IOC) member of long standing, a key ally of IOC President Thomas Bach and very much the power behind the throne of Asian football. (http://www.insideworldfootball.com/david-owen/17222) This was shaping up to be the pre-eminent relationship in the forthcoming election, since, if you accepted the Sheikh’s potential to ‘deliver’ a majority of the Asian Football Confederation (AFC)’s 46 national associations, and added those to UEFA’s 53, you would get within striking distance of the 105 votes necessary to secure a majority.
What, though, if this apparent alliance became fractured? The betting markets seem to be telling us that Prince Ali, who lost 133-73 to Blatter in the last FIFA Presidential election in May, would win.
I must admit, I don’t at present find that view terribly plausible, since not only did much of the Jordanian’s support in that ballot come from Platini’s UEFA, but I think he would struggle to secure Asia without a significant improvement in what I understand to be the state of relations between him and Sheikh Ahmad.
Nor do I think the prospects of Cameroon’s Hayatou, whose odds appear to be shortening partly on the basis that he is FIFA’s Senior Vice President and de facto Number Two, terribly strong as anything more than a stop-gap.
Which brings us to Sheikh Ahmad himself, currently rated along with Korea’s Chung as the best of the outsiders at odds between 9 and 16/1.
If the alliance with Platini fractured, he would presumably be forced to reckon without Europe. But I would expect a Sheikh Ahmad candidacy to be able to draw on quite widespread support in Africa, another large confederation, in addition to Asia and, quite possibly, Oceania. His extensive contacts within the Olympic Movement might, moreover, produce further reservoirs of support elsewhere, notably in the Americas.
I was initially discouraged from thinking that Friday’s developments might make it more likely that he would run by a line in the media release on the various decisions taken by the FIFA Executive Committee in the course of its two-day meeting. This noted that the ExCo had decided “to contact the Kuwait Football Association about the new sport law and warn about a suspension if nothing is done by 15 October 2015 to avoid the implementation of the new law due to come into force on 27 October 2015”. Repeat: 27 October 2015; that is the day after the deadline for Presidential candidates to submit their candidacies. Then again, I am not aware that Sheikh Ahmad has had much, if anything, to do with this new law, and his presence on an ExCo that is prepared to take this step might actually redound quite well on his candidacy, rather than the contrary.
I am still not convinced that Sheikh Ahmad, who celebrated his 52nd birthday last month, will run. I have seen little sign so far of a loosening in the apparent alliance with Platini. I also suspect that his ultimate sporting ambition might be to succeed Bach, in which case his stance might be swayed by whether he sees the FIFA job as a help or a hindrance in achieving that presumed aim.
But I am prepared once again now to regard a Sheikh Ahmad candidacy as a live possibility.
David Owen worked for 20 years for the Financial Times in the United States, Canada, France and the UK. He ended his FT career as sports editor after the 2006 World Cup and is now freelancing, including covering the 2008 Beijing Olympics, the 2010 World Cup and London 2012. Owen’s Twitter feed can be accessed at www.twitter.com/dodo938.