By Andrew Warshaw
January 26 – Amid confusion, contradictions and hints of buck-passing and election games, a planned televised debate involving three of the five FIFA presidential candidates has been scrapped after two of them withdrew with just 48 hours’ notice.
Prince Ali bin al-Hussein of Jordan, South Africa’s Tokyo Sexwale and former FIFA senior executive Jérôme Champagne had all been due to appear at the European parliament in Brussels tomorrow to debate the future of football’s scandal-tarnished world governing body and what they would do to right all the wrongs.
The debate was due to have been screened globally by ESPN but plans descended into farce after Prince Ali informed the joint organisers – the European parliament’s Sports Intergroup and the NewFifaNow pressure group – that he would be unable to attend. When he heard that Prince Ali had pulled out, Sexwale followed suit.
While the forum will still go ahead with Champagne left as keynote speaker in front of a group of European parliamentarians, the ESPN broadcast has been shelved while reasons for the fiasco differed considerably depending on who you spoke to.
A spokesman for Prince Ali, currently campaigning at the Conmebol congress in Paraguay along with rival candidate Gianni Infantino – who turned down an invite to attend Brussels and instead decided to send a video presentation – commented: “It was brought to our attention that there may be a breach of the electoral rules so we had to regretfully pull out.”
Indeed, in his letter to organisers, seen by Insideworldfootball, Prince Ali clearly pointed at rival candidates for stirring up the uncertainty and forcing him to pull out.
“I understand that one of the three candidates not participating has made a complaint to the Ad Hoc Electoral Committee” on the basis of political inference, Prince Ali wrote.
Quite why the Jordanian, who lost to Blatter last time, cited three candidates rather than two since only Infantino and Sheikh Salman had turned down the invitation is unclear. So is exactly who was responsible for his u-turn. Some sources pointed the finger directly at Infantino but Insideworldfootball has been reliably informed that “at least two” national federations supporting Infantino’s bid, rather than Infantino himself, had expressed their concern about a breach of the rules.
What HAS been made clear to Insideworldfootball, however, is that the Ad Hoc Electoral Committee, chaired by Domenico Scala and which is overseeing the election, never received any complaint from anyone about the debate, either verbally or in writing. That suggests Prince Ali may have been either duped or spooked – or both.
Another suggestion is that the real reason Prince Ali pulled out was that he realised that lobbying actual voting countries was a greater priority than appearing on a programme without two main contenders.
British MP Damian Collins, who heads NewFifaNow, said he had written to Scala for clarification on the issue.
“We are merely trying to put legitimate questions about the future of FIFA to presidential candidates as members of various parliaments as well as on behalf of fans and other key stakeholders,” he said. “Any organisation interested in, or committed to, democracy, transparency and accountability would understand this as should the people who want to be FIFA president.
“Rather than helping to rebuild FIFA’s credibility in the broader community, this outcome will just add to the impression that people at FIFA do not want open discussion about the future and reform of the organisation.”
It is understood, however, that there is nothing in the electoral rules to prevent the candidates debating side by side. It is highly unlikely, according to high-placed sources, that convening under the auspices of the European Parliament would in any way constitute political interference or be viewed as a breach of either electoral or ethics rules.
Which is presumably why Champagne will be there – albeit as the only presidential candidate.
“I will be in Brussels on Wednesday since this debate, far from being a form of governmental interference, constitutes an opportunity to expose visions for the future of football and to start rebuilding trust around FIFA,” said Champagne, who will now have the floor virtually to himself.
Interestingly, the BBC is also attempting to put on a similar debate next month and it remains to be seen whether it encounters similar problems.
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