By Paul Nicholson
February 11 – The intensive lobbying of African federations for their vote in the upcoming FIFA presidential elections last week saw more use of the ‘Gianni Jet’. This time it was spotted on a Facebook post delivering UEFA-funded candidate Gianni Infantino to Juba in South Sudan.
Infantino, who has declared that UEFA is funding his campaign to the tune of €500,000, said in his press conference in London last week that the bulk of that budget was going on travel. Private jets of course don’t come cheap, but scheduled flights to Juba don’t come too often either if you are lobbying African football chiefs at breakneck speed.
The trip to Juba was successful in that it did initially yield the support of South Sudan, and a number of opportunistic pictures beside the aircraft. But it now appears the South Sudan are now favoruing FIFA rival Shaikh Salman.
The South Sudanese were clearly delighted at being visited by European football royalty travelling in full pomp, and posted the pictures on their Facebook site.
“FIFA candidate Gianni Infantino reaches Juba this afternoon as part of his tour of Africa in his candidature for the FIFA presidency” read the post.
Infantino had the previous week met with some criticism from within his European federations that his time away from his desk lobbying in his quest for the FIFA presidency has left UEFA business unattended. Others had questioned his use of UEFA’s money to fund his campaign but Infantino counters that the budget was approved by UEFA’s executive committee.
How far he represents all of UEFA’s stakeholders is not clear as cracks have appeared with the all-powerful clubs within the European Club Association (ECA) while he has been on the road, or in the air.
AC Milan’s Umberto Gandini, a member of the ECA board, said on Monday: “Obviously we have known Gianni for many years and he was instrumental in developing our relationship. We wish him all the best in the election contest. It’s understandable that he is campaigning to get support around the world but he knows we are not happy. And probably that goes for clubs from other confederations too.”
The tailfin number in the picture shows the jet to be a Bombardier Learjet 60 (ZS-TEJ), a private jet operated by Comair Flight Services. The aircraft is based at Lanseria, South Africa.
The going rate for this kind of jet is between $3,000 to $3,800 per hour with the clock running from the time the plane leaves its base to the time it returns. The trip from Lanseria to Juba is 4 hours. Assuming he stayed just for a two hour meeting and then returned to Lanseria (and not using the jet to call on any other African federations), he would have used 10 hours flying time – an estimated cost of $30,000 at the low end, $38,000 at the higher.
If he used the aircraft to go on to Kigali in Rwanda, where the African football confederation (CAF) was holding its meetings, then there would have been another hour of flight time at least plus whatever waiting time if he retained the jet.
A return commercial fllght to Juba from South Africa in business class costs about $1,500, but it involves at least one change of flight and often arriving a day later.
For other plane spotting readers of Insideworldfootball, the 7-seat Learjet 60 has a speed of 839kph and a range of 4,500km. The picture below shows the interior of the jet.
Private jets have of course not been exclusive to UEFA’s budget. Former FIFA general secretary Jerome Valcke famously turned his jet around while on route to Moscow. On his return to Zurich he was suspended from his position and later fired, one of the allegations against him being a misuse of FIFA expenses.
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