A planned televised debate involving the men battling to become FIFA’s next president descended into farce on Monday after all but one candidate withdrew amid talk of “political interference.”
Former FIFA deputy general-secretary Jerome Champagne is to now be the only one of the five presidential hopefuls to address the forum in Brussels, jointly organized by the New FIFA Now pressure group and the European Parliament’s Sports Intergroup.
US sports television network ESPN canceled plans to broadcast a live stream of the debate from the parliament building.
Photo: Reuters
Champagne said he would be there regardless.
“I will be in Brussels on Wednesday, since this debate, far from being a form of governmental interference, constitutes an opportunity to expose visions for the future of football and to start rebuilding trust around FIFA,” he said.
The debate was to have focused on the future of the crisis-hit world governing body and provide a forum for “open, transparent discussion” ahead of the Feb. 26 presidential election in Zurich, Switzerland.
FIFA president Sepp Blatter and UEFA president Michel Platini have been banned from soccer for eight years by FIFA’s ethics committee as the world body endures the worst graft scandal in its history.
Forty-one individuals — many of them national association presidents — and entities have been indicted in the US for bribery, money laundering and wire fraud since May last year.
While Champagne is to speak to delegates, there is to be a video presentation from his presidential rival UEFA general secretary Gianni Infantino.
It was already known that Infantino, currently in Paraguay attending meetings of the South American Football Federation, and Sheikh Salman bin Ibrahim al-Khalifa of Bahrain would not attend the meeting.
However, Prince Ali bin al-Hussein of Jordan and South African Tokyo Sexwale withdrew on Monday.
Prince Ali told the Sports Intergroup that he feared the meeting might break FIFA’s election rules on political interference.
A statement from New FIFA Now said Ali had written to Sports Intergroup chairman Marc Tarabella and British parliamentarian Damian Collins, who co-founded New FIFA Now, saying that he had been advised the forum “may well constitute a breach of FIFA election rules.”
Ali said he believed another candidate had made a complaint to the FIFA ad-hoc electoral committee that is monitoring the election that hosting the debate might constitute “political interference.”
A spokesman for Infantino said he had made no complaint, as did a spokesman for Salman.
A spokesman for Sexwale said it made no sense to attend with only one other candidate confirmed.
“We were on our way to Brussels, but we are turning around and going home,” he said.
Collins refuted any claims of political bias, saying that the debate was to take place in a neutral venue, which has no executive powers relating to sport.
“We are merely trying to put legitimate questions about the future of FIFA to presidential candidates as members of various parliaments as well as on behalf of fans and other key stakeholders,” he said.
“Any organization interested in, or committed to, democracy, transparency and accountability would understand this, as should the people who want to be FIFA president,” he added.
He said he had written to electoral committee chairman Domenico Scala, seeking clarification on whether there is any reason why candidates would not be allowed to participate in the debate if they wanted to do so.
“Rather than helping to rebuild FIFA’s credibility in the broader community, this outcome will just add to the impression that people at FIFA do not want open discussion about the future and reform of the organization,” Collins said.
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