IOC chief Thomas Bach’s sombre note not music to FIFA
FIFA’s problems will not end with the election of a new president as football’s scandal-tainted world body needs drastic reform, International Olympic Committee president Thomas Bach said on Thursday. Bach would not comment on the announcement by UEFA leader Michel Platini that he was a candidate to take Sepp Blatter’s place as FIFA president when an election is held next February. But he said that all candidates had to embrace “transparency”.
“That applies to each candidate. It applies particularly because FIFA’s problems will not be over with the election of a new president. There must be reforms to the FIFA structure, transparency must be improved, the other structures must be transformed. The election of a president alone will not be enough.”
The IOC chief pointedly avoided involvement in the looming FIFA election battle however. “I am not going to make a comment on the election of federation president. It is not for me to judge,” he said. FIFA was rocked by the arrest of seven football officials accused of taking bribes on the eve of its Congress on May 27. Bach spoke at the first day of the congress and called for reforms.
The following day Blatter was re-elected to a fifth term as president but within four days he had announced that he would stand down. The seven FIFA officials are among 14 people charged by US authorities of involvement in more than $150 million of bribes for football marketing contracts.
Asia chief hails ‘unique’ Platini
Asia’s football chief Sheikh Salman bin Ebrahim Al Khalifa called for the region to unify behind one candidate in next year’s FIFA presidential election and stopped short of endorsing Platini for the job.
South Korean Chung Mong-joon, a major power broker in Asian football, announced that he would also be joining the race soon after the Asian Football Confederation released their statement.
Asia was a bedrock of support for outgoing president Sepp Blatter, who decided to stand down amid the worst crisis in FIFA’s history, and the number of votes from the region will make it highly influential in next February’s election.
“We have of course noted Michel Platini’s decision to stand, and he is certainly a unique candidate who would bring stability and a smooth transition to normality for FIFA in this difficult situation,” the AFC president said.
“Yet we should also remember that the FIFA president is only one part of FIFA, which is why it is so important to get the reforms right as well. Everybody accepts the need for change in FIFA, and in addition to changing the president much of the rest of FIFA’s organisation and the way it functions need to be modernised as well. FIFA also needs someone who can take the best of the past, fuse it with new ideas, and so take the organisation into the future.”
Jordanian Prince Ali bin Al Hussein, who lost to Blatter in the first round of last May’s presidential ballot before withdrawing, said on Wednesday that Platini’s candidature would not be good for FIFA.
Prince Ali, who is yet to announce whether he intends to run again, said FIFA needed new, independent leadership “untainted by the practices of the past” in order for proper reform to take place.
An AFC statement echoed his call for a “new FIFA and a new FIFA president”, even if the fact that Prince Ali did not have the backing of his home confederation when he took on Blatter last year indicates that Asia is unlikely to vote as a bloc.
But Africa non-committal
Platini’s bid for the FIFA presidency, meanwhile, has garnered no immediate enthusiasm from Africa despite France’s strong footballing ties with the continent. A day after confirming he would stand to replace Blatter as leader of world football, the Frenchman has been criticised by one African association and given a lukewarm endorsement by one of his closest allies.
“Platini would not represent change, he has been a FIFA vice-president for eight years. He should not replace Blatter, it would be unacceptable,” said Liberian Football Association president Musa Bility in a BBC interview. Bility had declared his own candidacy but is expected to find it difficult to obtain the nomination of at least five associations that he needs to get on the ballot for next February’s election. Platini has also failed to get an endorsement from former Ivory Coast federation president Jacques Anouma, who served with him on the FIFA executive committee.
Anouma was expected to push for African support for Platini but says he would rather take his cue from the Confederation of African Football (CAF).
“I do not deny the excellent relationship I have with Platini as I have with many other leaders of world football,” he wrote on his website. “However I would like to advise that I will side with the decision of CAF to safeguard the interest of African football.”
