Alliances

Day -865. ‪WorldCup2018‬.

A quick read through the latest news on the Fifa presidential candidates shows that there seems to be a patter emerging. The majority of the European associations are going to vote for the UEFA man, Gianni Infantino. In opposition to Infantino there is talk of an alliance between the African backers of the African candidate Tokyo Sexwale and the Asians who are hoping their man, Sheikh Salman al-Khalifa is the next president.

Overall it looks like it is going to be a repetition of the last couple of elections where Sepp Blatter campaigned (campaigned? sure we'll call it that) heavily amongst the Africans and Asians while the Europeans tried to make themselves believe that they were offering a strong alternative. Who ever even really knew, or gave it any consideration, whether anybody was a better candidate than Blatter. A few "football development" programmes and some fancy new stadiums, both with the associated revenues for anybody connected to the projects, won over any consideration of the personal attributes of Blatter, with no thought for the other candidate.

So it's the Europeans up against the probable alliance of the Asians and Africans, with the South Americans made to feel like their votes are important too (but there's not many of them anyway). And then when the powers that be figure that their candidate's potential votes need some boosting the countries of North, Central America and the Caribbean federation, and the Oceania islands will become very important players. Actually, let's take North America out of there. There’s only two of them and I somehow don't think, or I would like to believe, that the American or Canadian associations could face their members if they voted for Sheikh Salman al-Khalifa.

To take that thought a step further, I do not believe that Fifa could be asked to be taken seriously as an organisation promoting any sort of goodwill around the world if the majority of its members think that Sheikh Salman is a suitable person to lead them. The Sheikh has been accused of being involved in identifying athletes who were involved in pro-democracy demonstrations in Bahrain in 2011 and that some of those identified were imprisoned and tortured. Of course there have been official denials and reports of investigations produced to show he had no involvement. But, in response to reports of him now being the favourite to become the next Fifa president, here is, once again, the view of Nicholas McGeehan, the Gulf researcher at Human Rights Watch:

"If a member of Bahrain’s royal family is the cleanest pair of hands that Fifa can find, then the organisation would appear to have the shallowest and least ethical pool of talent in world sport."

And more from Mr McGeehan:

"At a time when Fifa is going through the biggest crisis in its history it would seem like an act of institutional suicide for it to appoint as its leader a man who was apparently responsible for sanctioning clubs who failed to show loyalty to a murderous regime.”