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You can find the current article at its original source at http://www.theguardian.com/football/blog/2016/feb/24/fifa-presidential-election-sepp-blatter-football-politics-zurich-michel-platini-salman-infantino
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| Torturous heart of Fifa’s presidential sport crime is hard to swallow | Torturous heart of Fifa’s presidential sport crime is hard to swallow |
| (about 3 hours later) | |
| If only we could have an in/out Fifa referendum. Unfortunately, the democracy simulator has decreed it must be otherwise, instead spewing forth a presidential election in which the candidates are: two former lieutenants of banned Fifa and Uefa bosses Sepp Blatter and Michel Platini, one South African anti-apartheid-activist-turned-businessman whose impact has been south of nonexistent, and two royals from non-democracies. And in one of those non-democracies, they torture footballers. So there’s your election. Try not to choke on it. | If only we could have an in/out Fifa referendum. Unfortunately, the democracy simulator has decreed it must be otherwise, instead spewing forth a presidential election in which the candidates are: two former lieutenants of banned Fifa and Uefa bosses Sepp Blatter and Michel Platini, one South African anti-apartheid-activist-turned-businessman whose impact has been south of nonexistent, and two royals from non-democracies. And in one of those non-democracies, they torture footballers. So there’s your election. Try not to choke on it. |
| Instead, set your sights on adventure, as Friday’s ballot hoves apocalyptically into view, offering a timely reminder to the US that the rest of the world can do electoral shitshows too. Even now, football head honchos from around the globe are gathering in Zurich’s Baur Au Lac hotel. I take a minuscule crumb of comfort from imagining it cinematically, with our movie opening with a series of lingering shots of twitchy men sitting fully dressed on their beds at 5am. You know, just in case they get “the knock”. | Instead, set your sights on adventure, as Friday’s ballot hoves apocalyptically into view, offering a timely reminder to the US that the rest of the world can do electoral shitshows too. Even now, football head honchos from around the globe are gathering in Zurich’s Baur Au Lac hotel. I take a minuscule crumb of comfort from imagining it cinematically, with our movie opening with a series of lingering shots of twitchy men sitting fully dressed on their beds at 5am. You know, just in case they get “the knock”. |
| Obviously, you get infinitely more women voting in Saudi elections than you do in Fifa ones, but let us cordially take our hats off to virtually the only female character in all this: the US attorney general Loretta Lynch, whose pursuit of Fifa corruption has offered an imaginatively less martial take on the notion of the US as the world’s policeman, and may yet put a rocket up Friday’s proceedings, considering how she keeps stressing the investigation is still in its early stages. | Obviously, you get infinitely more women voting in Saudi elections than you do in Fifa ones, but let us cordially take our hats off to virtually the only female character in all this: the US attorney general Loretta Lynch, whose pursuit of Fifa corruption has offered an imaginatively less martial take on the notion of the US as the world’s policeman, and may yet put a rocket up Friday’s proceedings, considering how she keeps stressing the investigation is still in its early stages. |
| Just to be on the safe side, I hope Fifa whips have put in place a system based on House of Commons pairing for any sudden absentees, where suspected criminals who would have voted for one candidate are used to cancel out suspected criminals who would have voted for one of the others. | Just to be on the safe side, I hope Fifa whips have put in place a system based on House of Commons pairing for any sudden absentees, where suspected criminals who would have voted for one candidate are used to cancel out suspected criminals who would have voted for one of the others. |
| Related: Change we can believe in … Said & Done’s guide to Fifa’s five contenders | Related: Change we can believe in … Said & Done’s guide to Fifa’s five contenders |
| As for the election, the rallying cry “only days left to save world football” feels wildly optimistic. I think “only days not to make things worse than Blatter” is about all that could be reasonably defended. | As for the election, the rallying cry “only days left to save world football” feels wildly optimistic. I think “only days not to make things worse than Blatter” is about all that could be reasonably defended. |
| And so to the two frontrunners. Both Sheikh Salman and Gianni Infantino were junior figures emerging from the shadows of more eye-catching personages. Infantino orbited around the now banned Uefa overlord Platini, and Sheikh Salman was once eclipsed in the headlines by his relative Prince Nasser, president of Bahrain’s Supreme Council for youth and sports (Salman is its general secretary). | And so to the two frontrunners. Both Sheikh Salman and Gianni Infantino were junior figures emerging from the shadows of more eye-catching personages. Infantino orbited around the now banned Uefa overlord Platini, and Sheikh Salman was once eclipsed in the headlines by his relative Prince Nasser, president of Bahrain’s Supreme Council for youth and sports (Salman is its general secretary). |
| Salman now admits Nasser appointed him to chair a committee to identify footballers and other athletes involved in the popular uprising, though he says this committee never met, which must have upset the powerful man who went to the trouble of convening it. After all, as the writer James Dorsey has painstakingly and repeatedly highlighted, it was Prince Nasser who called into a sports TV show after the crackdown in 2011 and made the following deathless declaration: “People have involved themselves in matters and have lost the love of their fans. People have entered labyrinths in which they will be lost … Anyone who involved himself in these matters and was part of it will be held accountable. Whether he is an athlete, socialite or politician, whatever he is – he will now be held accountable. Today is judgment day. May God grant patience and strength to all. Bahrain is an island and there is nowhere to escape … It is known who stood against us. The days will judge.” | Salman now admits Nasser appointed him to chair a committee to identify footballers and other athletes involved in the popular uprising, though he says this committee never met, which must have upset the powerful man who went to the trouble of convening it. After all, as the writer James Dorsey has painstakingly and repeatedly highlighted, it was Prince Nasser who called into a sports TV show after the crackdown in 2011 and made the following deathless declaration: “People have involved themselves in matters and have lost the love of their fans. People have entered labyrinths in which they will be lost … Anyone who involved himself in these matters and was part of it will be held accountable. Whether he is an athlete, socialite or politician, whatever he is – he will now be held accountable. Today is judgment day. May God grant patience and strength to all. Bahrain is an island and there is nowhere to escape … It is known who stood against us. The days will judge.” |
| Mmmm. The chap who made this utterance is still the president of the Bahrain Olympic Committee. So, more lectures on Fifa’s morality from Thomas Bach’s hideously compromised outfit over in Lausanne as and when we get them. | Mmmm. The chap who made this utterance is still the president of the Bahrain Olympic Committee. So, more lectures on Fifa’s morality from Thomas Bach’s hideously compromised outfit over in Lausanne as and when we get them. |
| Related: Sepp Blatter: Qatar won 2022 World Cup due to French pressure, not a fix | Related: Sepp Blatter: Qatar won 2022 World Cup due to French pressure, not a fix |
| In the meantime, given his family’s record, it remains jaw-dropping that Sheikh Salman is anywhere near the Fifa election; that he is still mostly classed as the favourite is even more repulsive. When Blatter whinges – as he did again last week – that “I have killed nobody”, at least he does so figuratively. When Sheikh Salman gets his lawyers to offer a version of “I was involved in the torture of nobody”, he means it literally. I’m sure we’re all shocked – shocked! – to find that only Infantino took up his fellow candidate Tokyo Sexwale’s offer to the other runners to visit the Robben Island prison in which he was held for pro-democracy crimes. No doubt Sheikh Salman would have been deeply moved by the experience. | |
| Needless to say, a mere fortnight ago, Sheikh Salman signed his amended version of a human rights pledge, promising that Fifa’s events would “not cause or contribute to human rights abuses and corruption”. Well done and everything, but is there an ancient proverb warning us to beware of people from human rights-abusing autocracies who are so keen to secure victory in other people’s elections that they sign human rights pledges? I don’t want to order his priorities for him, but if Sheikh Salman minds so much about hopey-changey stuff, maybe he could have a word with the rest of the ruling royal family, because Bahrain is consistently ranked near the very bottom of any global democratic index, and on annual trends is getting worse. | Needless to say, a mere fortnight ago, Sheikh Salman signed his amended version of a human rights pledge, promising that Fifa’s events would “not cause or contribute to human rights abuses and corruption”. Well done and everything, but is there an ancient proverb warning us to beware of people from human rights-abusing autocracies who are so keen to secure victory in other people’s elections that they sign human rights pledges? I don’t want to order his priorities for him, but if Sheikh Salman minds so much about hopey-changey stuff, maybe he could have a word with the rest of the ruling royal family, because Bahrain is consistently ranked near the very bottom of any global democratic index, and on annual trends is getting worse. |
| That said, it does lead the way on some things. During the 2011 uprisings, pro-democracy athletes were rounded up and incarcerated for something rather futuristically referred to as “sport crimes”. What is a “sport crime”? Only I have a nasty suspicion that one might be committed in Zurich on Friday. Those with power to prevent it should act. | That said, it does lead the way on some things. During the 2011 uprisings, pro-democracy athletes were rounded up and incarcerated for something rather futuristically referred to as “sport crimes”. What is a “sport crime”? Only I have a nasty suspicion that one might be committed in Zurich on Friday. Those with power to prevent it should act. |