Zurich/New York, May 28 (IANS) One day after FIFA was rocked by the indictment of nine of its officials in the United States on graft charges, the world football governing body elects its new president for the next four years on Friday with the under-pressure incumbent boss Sepp Blatter favourite against Jordan’s Prince Ali bin al-Hussein.
The US Justice Department has charged 14 individuals — including two current FIFA vice presidents and seven other world football officials — with offences including racketeering, wire fraud and money laundering conspiracies. It also said in a release that the 47-count indictment, unsealed in federal court in Brooklyn, New York, is “not the final chapter” in the wide-ranging and ongoing investigation.
The announcement by Attorney General Loretta Lynch, accompanied at a press conference in New York by FBI director James Comey, came on the same day that Swiss authorities arrested seven of the 14 defendants charged in the indictment. In addition to the US-led criminal investigation, Swiss officials are looking into the 2018 and 2022 World Cup bids.
“They used their positions of trust within their respective organizations to solicit bribes from sports marketers in exchange for the commercial rights to their soccer tournaments,” Lynch said.
Despite the insistence of reporters, however, she refused to discuss possible measures against FIFA president Sepp Blatter, who was not among those indicted and is expected to win re-election for a fifth term on Friday.
Amidst all this, Union of European Football Associations (UEFA), that has 54 FIFA members had on Wednesday called for the postponement of the presidential elections but FIFA stood firm and even asserted that the two World Cups will go as planned.
FIFA’s Independent Ethics Committee has also banned 11 officials named by investigators from football activities. “Such misconduct has no place in football and we will ensure that those who engage in it are put out of the game,” Blatter said.
However, ahead of the elections, UEFA president Michael Platini on Thursday asked Blatter to step down and also urged his organisation’s 54 members to cast their votes against the incumbent FIFA supremo because of the issue.
“I have had enough. Enough is enough. Too much is too much. Today we had a meeting of the 54 members. Tomorrow (Friday), when it comes to the election of the presidency, a very big majority of European national associations will vote Prince Ali,” he said.
“People don’t want (Blatter) anymore and I don’t want him anymore either. I have always said they want FIFA to be strong and FIFA is no longer strong. I am still trying to convince some (European football associations) who are not totally convinced,” he concluded.
However, Blatter, 79, is a strong favourite to win a fifth term at the head of the world’s most powerful sporting federation. The winner will need a majority from FIFA’s 209 member federations. Blatter, who is president of the FIFA since 1998, has received strong public backing from nearly every regional confederation except Europe’s UEFA.
Last Thursday, former Portugal star Luis Figo and Dutch football federation president Michael van Praag pulled out of the race to make it comfortable for Prince Ali, who even though is reportedly not backed by his own continental federation –Asian Football Confederation (AFC). It even didn’t support UEFA in its calls for postponement of the elections.
“It is time to shift the focus away from administrative controversy and back to sport. The headlines should be about football again, not FIFA,” the 39-year-old Prince Ali, who is a FIFA executive committe member as one of its vice president. had said when launching his campaign in January.
However, Blatter has also support from African mambers and Russian President Vladimir Putin, who has thrown his weight behind Blatter. Putin said on Thursday that the arrest of FIFA officials was an attempt to prevent prevent the 2018 World Cup from being held in his country.
Moreover, Putin saw the FIFA arrests as part of the US’s political agenda: “This is yet another blatant attempt (by the United States) to extend its jurisdiction to other states.”
Meanwhile the 14 defendants include FIFA vice presidents Uruguayan Eugenio Figueredo and Caymanian Jeffrey Webb, who is also president of the Confederation of North, Central American and Caribbean association football, known as CONCACAF – as well as the former president of the South American Football Confederation (CONMEBOL), Paraguayan Nicolas Leoz.
Both Figueredo and Webb were arrested early on Wednesday by Swiss authorities, who acted at the request of the US. Trinidad and Tobago’s Jack Warner, a former FIFA vice president and ex-president of CONCACAF, also was among the 14 defendants indicted.
Four of the defendants are sports marketing executives, while one other defendant allegedly served as a liaison to facilitate illicit payments by sports marketing executives to soccer officials.