By Andrew Warshaw
February 4 – Speculation that Tokyo Sexwale will pull out of the race to become FIFA president has been fuelled by his continuing inability to secure the unequivocal backing of his own South African federation, let alone the African Continent as whole.
Sexwale, the only African contender, will discover on Friday whether his candidacy is be endorsed by the Confederation of African Football whose 54 voting members, the biggest single bloc, are considered pivotal to the outcome of the Feb 26 ballot.
Failure to land an endorsement from African football’s governing body would be a serious body blow to the former anti-apartheid icon turned business mogul whose lacklustre presidential campaign has been a concern to South Africa’s federation (SAFA), one of the five that nominated him.
SAFA president Danny Jordaan, who organised the 2010 World Cup, said Sexwale had provided a “comprehensive” report over his FIFA leadership plans but stopped short of further comment until after a meeting of CAF’s top brass in Kigali, Rwanda, Sexwale’s final opportunity to win support.
In some parts of Africa, Sexwale has even been openly criticised.
“We have listened to all the candidates and we know what each of them is bringing on board and who shares in our vision,” Ghana Football Association president Kwesi Nyantakyi was quoted as saying last month. “You can read from them that some are very serious about their bid and others are just walking through … just like Tokyo Sexwale.”
Significantly, Nyantakyi is a CAF executive committee member and his suggestion that Sexwale was relying too much on his anti-apartheid activist past does not augur well for Africa’s only candidate in his bid to revive his ailing campaign.
Not surprisingly, Sexwale’s rivals for the post are all converging on Kagali to try and drum up late support. Last month, CAF signed a co-operation agreement with the Asian Football Confederation, leading to suggestions that many African countries will back Bahrain’s AFC leader Sheikh Salman for the presidency.
His Asian rival Prince Ali bin al-Hussein, who is bidding for a second time but looks to be trailing in third place, asked FIFA for an investigation into whether Sheikh Salman was breaking election rules by trying to engineer a bloc vote in his favour. But his request looks to have fallen on deaf ears.
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