Prince Ali against Sepp Blatter for Fifa presidency in toughest of races

http://www.theguardian.com/football/blog/2015/jan/06/prince-ali-sepp-blatter-fifa-president-jordan

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Prince Ali, a member of the Jordanian royal family and Fifa vice-president, who will challenge Sepp Blatter’s position as leader of world football’s governing body, has just entered a race he knows he has only a very slim chance of winning.

Despite four more scandal-hit years as he has struggled to contain the fallout from the calamitous race for the 2018 and 2022 World Cups, Blatter is close to a shoo-in for a fifth term he vowed he would never stand for. Only ill health or a dramatic change of mind will derail him, despite the scandal besieging him.

So, anyone harbouring the notion that Ali’s intervention might bring Fifa’s $100m black-glass HQ in Zurich crashing down is likely to be disappointed come the election at the end of May.

Even among Ali’s most enthusiastic supporters, many of them from within a Uefa that has hardened its face against the septuganarian Fifa overlord in recent years, it is hard to find one who believes he would actually unseat the incumbent.

“It is time to shift the focus away from administrative controversy and back to sport,” said the Sandhurst-educated Ali, who has been on the Fifa executive committee since 2011. “The world’s game deserves a world-class governing body, an international federation that is a service organisation and a model of ethics, transparency and good governance.”

All of which indicates the urbane, softly spoken Jordanian is unlikely to take direct aim at Blatter himself but instead fall back on the sort of buzzwords long since rendered meaningless by their constant incantation by the current administration.

There is also an element of desperation to Ali’s tilt at the top job. He knows his time as a Fifa vice-president is drawing to a close by virtue of reforms likely to be instigated by the Asian Football Confederation in the spring. If he even wants to remain on the Fifa executive committee, he will have to stand for re-election.

Just three days ago Sheikh Salman Ebrahim al-Khalifa, the president of the AFC, pledged his support to Blatter. By way of reminder, the Bahranian’s predecessor was Mohamed bin Hammam – the last man to go head to head with Blatter for the presidency only to be cast from the game for life when incriminating photos of bundles of dollar bills came to light during his campaign.

But for all that his mission may be doomed, there are modest reasons to cheer the decision by the 39-year-old, one of a growing cohort of more youthful figures on the Fifa exco who, superficially at least, are pushing for more transparency and better governance.

He was one of only three Fifa executive committee members to return those now infamous $26,000 watches doled out at a pre-World Cup Fifa congress that has already become a byword for Fifa’s demons and Blatter’s dictatorial style.

Like the American Sunil Gulati (a close ally), the Concacaf president Jeffrey Webb, the British Fifa vice-president Jim Boyce and the Australian Moya Dodd, Ali has been consistent in his calls for the report by Michael Garcia, the former Fifa ethics investigator, into World Cup bidding to be published in full. And yet his campaign will almost certainly founder on the systemic obstacles that any challenger to Blatter, who has been at Fifa for 40 years and president for more than 16, must overcome.

Moulded by his disgraced predecessor and mentor João Havelange in a furnace of patronage and privilege, Blatter has over the years perfected the art of using the World Cup revenues that roll in every four years to keep his voting members happy.

Outside of western Europe, some pockets of the Concacaf region and parts of Asia, there is very little appetite to upset the applecart. Where others see a mafia-style system built on shifting sands, many of those members see one that guarantees them an ever growing slice of Fifa’s vast income and a president who has continually delivered. Five of the six confederations have already come out to back Blatter. The sixth, Uefa, has been virulent in its criticism through its president Michel Platini.

With the Frenchman having declined to stand and a speculative attempt to cast around for an alternative Uefa candidate having foundered on the fact that no one would put their head above the parapet, a majority of the 54 European FAs are now likely to back Ali.

“I know Prince Ali well. He has all the credibility required to hold high office. We now await his proposals and his programme for the future of football,” Platini said on Tuesday.

But even the backing of the Europeans will be by no means unanimous. Russia, host of the next World Cup, is fully behind Blatter as are several other eastern European nations.

Spain’s Angel Maria Villar Llona has also traditionally been a staunch Blatter loyalist, though that may be tested by the ongoing ethics committee investigation into his conduct during the bid.Blatter has form in using the instruments of Fifa to punish those who challenge him and Ali will be bracing himself.

Meanwhile the other confirmed challenger, the French former diplomat and long-time Blatter ally, Jérôme Champagne, continues to insist he will see his campaign through.

A long time opponent of Platini, he has argued his case through lengthy, often dense, manifestos that seek to tackle some of the fundamental questions facing the game.

Yet such is the effect of the Fifa hall of mirrors that many of his critics suspect him of being a placeman for Blatter. For now, he deserves to be taken at face value.Anyone else who wants to join a race significantly tilted in favour of the incumbent has until the end of the month to declare.

The FA chairman, Greg Dyke, who has spoken of his bafflement at the banana republic politics of Fifa, welcomed Ali’s decision: “It is very important that there is a credible candidate standing against Mr Blatter and Prince Ali is certainly that.”

While warm words will not be enough to unseat Blatter at least there may now be the semblance of a debate about football’s future. And, if nothing else, the sight of a young challenger to the geriatric king of Fifa-land will act as a symbol of the need to change not just one man but the systems that govern an entire organisation warped down the years by those around its boardroom table.