The campaign to oust Sepp Blatter from the presidency of FIFA will begin officially in Cairo today when Issa Hayatou, Africa's leading football adminstrator, announces that he is standing for the most powerful job in the game. Vivek Chaudhary reports
Hayatou, 55, the president of the Confederation of African Football (CAF), is backed by the influential European lobby within FIFA, as well as his fellow African delegates who are meeting in the Egyptian capital to discuss the coming FIFA presidential election. Lennart Johansson, the president of the European governing body UEFA, is also there to endorse Hayatou's candidacy.
Hayatou appears certain to declare his candidacy once he has met with CAF's executive committee today. Nominations for the FIFA presidential election close on March 28th and the Cameroonian said yesterday: "Standing [for the presidency] requires teamwork. In spite of my stated intention, I have to await the endorsement of my friends who are going to help me in this campaign. "
Hayatou is also being supported by Chung Mong-joon, the influential head of Asian football, who has been critical of the way Blatter has handled FIFA's finances. The African football administrator has spent the past few weeks touring his continent and also the middle and far east in an attempt to gather support for the election.
His intention to stand comes as the row between UEFA and FIFA intensified yesterday, with Blatter saying he wanted to minimise the influence of Europeans within world football's governing body.
Eight of FIFA's 24-member executive committee are Europeans, and Blatter claims he has been the victim of a campaign orchestrated by UEFA to unseat him.
Blatter said yesterday that he wanted to change FIFA's statutes to minimise the power of Europe, declaring: "We will have new statutes for our centenary year to reflect the new look of football. At present the members of the executive board are selected by six different entities, and this makes work difficult. I think there is too much power in one confederation, UEFA, which has eight members out of the 24. If it finds allies from another confederation, then it has 12 votes and only needs one more to make it difficult for the president. I am left without a mandate."
Blatter has already announced that he wants to stand for a second term as FIFA president when elections take place in Seoul a week before the start of this year's World Cup. He wants all 204 member associations to elect the executive committee of FIFA, believing this would give him more power.
Blatter has been fending off allegations of financial mismanagement and claims that supporters paid money to FIFA delegates to vote for him when he was elected in 1998.
European football officials hit back at his comments yesterday, saying they should have an influential role within FIFA because the continent generates 50-80 per cent of its revenues, mostly from television rights.
Guardian Service