By Matt Scott
February 21 – FIFA’s presidential election will feature two swing voters who in an increasingly bitter struggle for support among candidates could play a decisive role in its outcome.
And that could bode ill for Gianni Infantino, since both might be assumed to fall within the sphere of influence of the early frontrunner, Shaikh Salman Bin Ibrahim Al-Khalifa of Bahrain, the Asian Football Confederation president.
Government involvement in domestic sporting structures and tournaments in Indonesia and Kuwait led to FIFA issuing bans from international football competitions.
However those bans will be reviewed by the FIFA Congress on February 26, the day of the FIFA election.
And the timing of the vote on that matter – Item 4 on the agenda for the Extraordinary Congress entitled ‘Suspension or expulsion of a member’ – means there will be time for both nations to participate in the crucial presidential vote. ‘Election of the President’ is agenda Item 11.
Sources close to the Salman camp have indicated he will lobby his supporters hard for their reinstatement in an effort to pick up the extra two votes, since, with five candidates splitting the vote in the first round of polling, Kuwait and Indonesia’s support could prove vital to his electoral chances.
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