By Andrew Warshaw
November 13 – FIFA’s electoral committee were unanimous in allowing Asian football chief Sheikh Salman bin Ebrahim al-Khalifa to run for the presidency and in banning Liberia’s Musa Bility from standing, Insideworldfootball has learned.
It has also been confirmed by sources close to the process that Bility was ruled out because he had a criminal record, not because of a long-running feud with African football supremo Issa Hayatou, the man now running FIFA on an interim basis while Sepp Blatter is suspended.
When FIFA announced the five candidates given the green light to take over from Blatter on February 26 following strict integrity checks, Bility’s name was conspicuous by its absence.
FIFA gave no reason for throwing out his nomination, leading to speculation that it may have been linked with the fact that he was banned in 2013 by the Confederation of African Football for six months for using confidential CAF documents without permission.
But it now transpires that had nothing to do with Bility failing the strict integrity checks.
“He has been convicted in the past for criminal mismanagement and for tax evasion, including in his own country” a source close to the process told InsideWorldFootball.
The revelation that Bility, a national association president, applied to take over from Blatter even though he was a convicted criminal will heap even more opprobrium and embarrassment on FIFA and its scandal-tarnished image and fuel calls for stricter controls of officials bidding for power even at federation level.
There are seemingly no such worries for Salman who is slowly emerging as the front-runner to win the FIFA presidency despite a wave of allegations against him from human rights organisations.
Sources close to those who carried out the integrity checks have been at pains to stress there was no evidence against Salman for his candidacy to be rejected when his file was passed to FIFA’s electoral committee for a decision.
It is understood those involved in carrying out the checks were uncomfortable about the allegations but found no concrete information linking Salman to human rights violations during the 2011 pro-democracy demonstrations in his native Bahrain.
“The events of 2011 are extremely serious but there was no single piece of evidence on the table that proved direct personal involvement of Mr Salman with these activities,” one insider close to the process told Insideworldfootball.
Whilst there was a long debate about both Salman and Bility, conclusions could only be reached according to the eligibility rules, with those involved in deciding which applications could and couldn’t go forward anxious to avoid getting embroiled in politics.
“We can’t take arbritary political decisions, that’s up to other bodies. If there is any doubt about Salman’s suitability, that’s up to the FIFA Congress to decide if he should be elected,” said one source. “The electoral committee is not a substitute for a political process. It can’t make judgements based on doubts, opinions or political assessments. It can only make decisions based on evidence that is beyond any doubt. The judgements over both Salman and Bility were unanimous.”
Another highly knowledgeable source linked to the process added: “There are hundreds of pressure groups around. You may as well argue that Barack Obama, if he had applied for FIFA president, should also be ruled out for human rights reasons because of making war in such and such a place. That’s politics.”
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