By Andrew Warshaw
February 10 – Despite publicly pledging its support for Gianni Infantino at the forthcoming FIFA presidential election, is Russia secretly planning to switch sides and back Bahrain’s Asian football chief Shaikh Salman instead?
The issue was raised by seasoned observers and those close to the electoral process following bilateral co-operation talks on Monday between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Bahrain’s King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa to discuss anti-terror efforts.
Buried in a Tass article on the summit was a potentially revealing declaration by Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov who reportedly said that both countries had “pledged to join actions in the election of the FIFA president”.
According to Lavrov, Tass further reported, “the King of Bahrain has actively supported the idea of holding the 2018 FIFA World Cup in Russia.”
Such remarks are being interpreted in some quarters as a strong clue that the Russian federation, led by FIFA executive committee member and Russian sports minister Vitaly Mutko, will follow government instructions and support Salman at the ballot on February 26.
Federation chiefs have a habit of saying one thing before FIFA elections and doing something else on the day so it remains to be seen whether Mutko, one of Europe’s three representatives on the FIFA exco, follows up was at the time an unconvincing pledge to vote for Infantino.
At the last election in May, it is widely believed that Russia supported Sepp Blatter in defiance of the European mandate to back Prince Ali bin al-Hussein, who lost to Blatter and is standing again this time.
Last month, Mutko described Infantino’s suggestion to allow entire regions to stage the World Cup as “a campaign idea. I believe that the identity would be lost as well as the holiday of a particular country and culture,” he told Tass.
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