Almost there: election countdown

Day -841. WorldCup2018.

This build up to the Fifa election is tiring business. Trying to keep track of who might be voting for who and predicting the scenarios is pretty exhausting. And it really does feel like a political election. No, I'm not surprised but the similarities are striking.

Gianni Infantino was in South Africa yesterday and when he announced that he believes that more than half of the Africans associations are going to vote for him, Tokyo Sexwale was sitting next to him. Sexwale has given up on his chances of winning many, if any, votes on Friday. His own country won't vote for him. So now he's popping up next to the favourite and is talking alliances. Sexwale invited all the candidates to South Africa but the other three were too busy. So Sexwale had Infantino's full attention and talked about the reality of necessary deals with his opponents. Is Sexwale offering to sway some voters if it goes to a second round in return for a good position within Fifa?

Then we have Infantino and Sheoikh Salman talking about how much they respect each other. The Sheikh said something on the lines of Infantino being a great guy who I like but some of his ideas don't make financial sense. And the Sheikh is talking about deficits, the magic word that every politician uses in the run up to an election, without most of the electorate knowing what it means. We hope that the 209 presidents of their national associations understand deficits, but nonetheless it still has the feeling of a scare tactic by the Sheikh.

And to top it all off, to give the whole thing the feeling of an election in a country of questionable democracy we have the candidate acting the part of the sore loser before he's actually lost. Prince Ali was once upon a time the favourite to win. It didn't last long. It was soon after the election last May where he was Sepp Blatter's only opponent. Four days later, when Blatter stepped down, Prince Ali became the favourite because there was no one else. Then Michel Platini stepped in because he couldn't stand what Blatter had done to football's image. And then Platini was suspended over the "disloyal payment" and Prince Ali became the favourite again. But Sheik Salman doesn't like the Prince so he became a candidate to stop the Prince winning. And as president of the Asian Football Confederation, Sheikh Salman had the backing of the Asians and now he was the favourite. Then UEFA needed an alternate candidate to replace Platini. In steps Infantino and eventually he takes away all Prince Ali's European votes. And now the Prince is annoyed. He knows the games is up. So first he complains that the Africans and Asians have colluded (they did sign a development agreement) and have engineered a bloc vote in favour of the Sheikh. Today he took his complaint to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) because Fifa vetoed his request to have transparent voting boxes. And the good Prince even offered to supply all the boxes. He has asked CAS to suspend the vote until they make a decision.  Donald Trump? What? He can't really compete with this lot for entertainment.

So roll on Friday. Plan your day, but plan to not know what time the election will take place at. It's part of the Fifa Extraordinary Congress. Delegates will start arriving at 9am  (Zurich time) and the election is item number 11, of 12, on the agenda. It is forecast that voting will start at 2pm, but it is an old fashioned vote where all of the 209 (or 207)  delegates have to pop their vote in a box, which may or may not be Prince Ali's transparent boxes. None of that press-a-button in your seat style election for Fifa.  And if the magic number  (139, or 138 if 207 voters are voting (see yesterday)) is not attained by any candidate they will do it all again in a second round, but not without a break for some vital, "who do we vote for now" questions amongst the Prince Ali supporters. Happily, the Sheikh and Infantino will have some kind members of their "team" assist the undecided in making a decision. And by the late afternoon we may have a new president. Unlike the white smoke from the chimney announcing the new Pope, the new president will be announced on stage by the most senior Fifa official, which may mean they might have to go quite far down the organisation list to find someone without the word "fired" by his name. It's going to be quite the day.