By Andrew Warshaw in Mauritius
May 30 – Zhang Jilong (pictured), the Chinese official who ran Asian football as interim president for two years yet opted not to apply for the job full-time, is back at the top table of FIFA. Zhang has been unexpectedly parachuted back on to the FIFA executive committee in place of Sri Lankan’s Fernando Manilal.
Fernando was kicked out of football for eight years for unspecified misuse of confederation funds and is conspicuous by his absence at the FIFA congress in Mauritius this week.
Fernando was the biggest powerbroker in East Asia and it was assumed his seat would remain vacant, in the short term at least, until the Asian Football Confederation as a body decided on a successor.
But Zhang – who replaced Mohamed bin Hammam as AFC boss on an acting basis but decided not to contest the presidential election last month’s election – suddenly turned up unannounced this week to sit on the FIFA executive committee.
AFC President Sheikh Salman Ebrahim Al-Khalifa confirmed that Zhang had officially taken Fernando’s place.
“According to our statutes the president nominates and then it is approved by our exco members,” Salman told reporters on the fringes of the FIFA Congress. “That’s exactly what we’ve done. Zhang Jilong is the AFC senior vice-president so it’s logical I should have nominated him. It’s a wise choice because he’s been there before. Most of the members have supported it.”
Salman had already hinted, at the AFC Congress last month, that another candidate from East Asia might the best solution for regional balance on FIFA’s powerful body, ruling out the chances of Qatar’s Hassan Al Thawadi.
Fernando’s ban, reasons for which have still not been given in detail, is linked with alleged misuse of AFC funds, which ultimately led to the life ban of former AFC president Mohamed bin Hammam, one of his closest allies.
Fernando accompanied bin Hammam on that ultimately self-destructive May 2011 trip to Trinidad when Caribbean members received cash ahead of the FIFA Presidential election. Bin Hammam withdrew his bid to replace Sepp Blatter when the cash-for-votes scandal became public.
It is no secret that Fernando wielded huge influence in south-east Asia. Three years ago, Salman, head of the Bahrain FA, lost out to bin Hammam by two votes for a FIFA executive committee place and his supporters will doubtless point to Fernando’s wrongdoing as another example of a corrupt past regime.
Salman, meanwhile, is keen to move on from the furore that accompanied the recent AFC presidential election when he beat off his rival candidates by a landslide despite fierce allegations of human rights violations in his country and claims of foul play in the run-up to the election.
He only has two years to put a marker down before his mandate runs out and is keen to get started, in particular in terms of improving the image of Asian football after years of disunity and corruption.
“We want to see the AFC have a stronger role in world football and ideally I’d like to have some transparency in place by the end of this year,” said Salman. “Looking at the past won’t get us anywhere. I don’t think people will expect us to make major changes within two years but we have to look at a few things including tackling match-fixing.”
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