By Paul Nicholson
September 3 – Saudi Arabia’s ambition to hold the presidency of the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) has seen a second Saudi declare he will run in the presidential election next year.
If Al Jaber’s nomination is carried through – and the signals and strategy from Saudi Arabia are somewhat conflicting – former playing legend Sami Al Jaber will enter the ballot alongside his countryman Adel Ezzat to unseat current AFC president Shaikh Salman bin Ebrahim Al Khalifa who declared he was running for a second full term last week.
While Ezzat has very little track record in football having only emerged in Saudi in 2016 as FA president before quickly standing down and pursuing wider regional ambition, in contrast Al Jaber has a long association with the game, though mainly as a player and a football celebratory for hire.
Al Jaber’s various rants and Twitter postings against Qatar since the Saudi-backed blockade began in 2017 will doubtless attract the attention of the AFC’s electoral committee, as well as its audit and compliance body. The AFC is the most culturally broad-based confederation within FIFA and Al Jaber’s postings would point to a somewhat disturbing view of equanimity, tolerance and diversity amongst nations and people that the AFC has made central to its philosophy.
The irony within this is that until the Saudi blockade of Qatar, Al Jaber had had no problem taking the Qatari coin having been an ambassador for the Qatar 2022 World Cup and a football commentator for beIN Sport, itself locked in a $1 billion claim over the piracy of its rights with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
beIN Sport is a key commercial partner of the AFC and any Saudi disruption of that relationship would be both unwanted as it would be damaging.
Even within Saudi it is unclear how far Al Jaber is taken seriously by his own authorities. Just last month controversial Saudi president of the General Authority for Sports and Chairman of the Olympic Committee, Turki Al-Sheikh, ousted Al Jaber as president of the Al Hilal club appointing Prince Mohammed bin Faisal as his successor.
Instead Al-Sheikh found Al Jaber a position as the advisor to the Kingdom’s General Sports Authority with a supposed role in international relations (though obviously not with his old friends in Qatar). However, it appears he is a very rapid learner having been elevated rapidly to AFC presidential candidate status and reportedly in regional media having the backing of Al-Sheikh.
Quite where this would leave Ezzat and his own nomination and support is unclear. But it seems he doesn’t have the full backing of his own country whose only coherent position seems to be around its geo-political position in the region.
Al Jaber certainly brings a goal scoring look to the AFC presidential campaign having scored 46 times in 156 international for Saudi Arabia between 1992 and 2006. Whether he can score the ultimate goal for Saudi remains to be seen, as does whether he will be allowed to take to the field of play.
However, he did score recently in London, presenting an award at the FIFA Best ceremonies. Perhaps a gentle indication of where FIFA president Gianni Infantino’s support rests in Asia?
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