Finally after months of departing President Sepp Blatter digging in his heels and refusing to go FIFA is finally on the cusp of a new election. No, the actual election itself takes place in February, but the candidates themselves are now settled and because of this I can predict with near certainty exactly how this will all play-out. How you ask? No, I can’t predict the future, but as Battlestar Galactica keeps telling me all of this has happened before and all of this will happen again and this is so in the case of FIFA.
So sit back and relax as I guide you through the next 4 months in the build up to the election with a play by play of (almost) exactly how this will all go down.
The Opening Salvo
With corruption the keyword every candidate has stood on a platform of reform, transparency and cleaning up the organisation. It’s a lot of words with no real guarantee it will pan out. All of the candidates too have sketchy pasts; either being a vital cog in the previous corrupt FIFA machine or having questionable backgrounds themselves. Sheikh Salman Bin Ebrahim al-Khalifa, the Bahraini President of the AFC has already had to defend himself against claims he was complicit in the torture of players from his own association.
Musa Bility, the Liberian FA President will have to defend his 6 month ban from football in 2013 for the misuse of confidential documents. He will be tarred with the same corruption brush as the rest and what with his background in African business his reputation will be tarnished. He doesn’t have the support of the CAF though so he never really had a chance. So Bility will have dropped out within the first 2 months if he’s smart. Jerome Champagne the former advisor to Blatter will endure similar taunts and what with a lack of support in UEFA he too will be gone or assigned to irrelevancy before the votes are even cast. Tokyo Sexwale will receive accusations too of corruption, through association with the horrendously corrupt Zuma regime in South Africa, He will blather something about how he was best mates with Mandela and CAF will rally behind him as he is already their chosen candidate.
GIanni Infantino and Prince Ali bin al-Hussein will squabble over who will take the lions share of the UEFA vote as Champagne cries into his glass of – yep you guessed it. Prince Ali will wax lyrical about how he was the only one to oppose Blatter whilst Infantino will play the Marco Rubio card; “Look at me, I’m young, I’m fresh and you all like me from my master of ceremonies gig, right?”
Platini at this point is still banned and not able to get involved but I doubt he will go quietly.
Things Heat Up
With the opening shots cast the candidates, now down to 4 real options (Bility, Champagne and Platini all down and just about out), begin to try and curry the votes together. Sexwale has the 54 votes of CAF and Sheikh Salman has the 46 of AFC mostly tied up. Prince Ali and Infantino are still trying to win over the whole of UEFA but UEFA by this point has realised neither of them will win and is now considering Sheikh Salman as a serious option. After all, compared to the rest he is a moderate. Sexwale will appeal to CONMEBOL as a developing continent but they’ll put their eggs in Salman’s basket. CONMEBOL already lacks voting power, with just 10 votes, but they have real footballing power and CAF are their only challengers to the second seat in world football. 
They wouldn’t want a CAF President in charge of FIFA, so they too go to the moderate option. OFC has a tendency to side with the AFC as they are heavily linked so Salman can probably count on their 11 votes too. CONCACAF is likely to side with Sexwale due to their development agenda being largely in line with his.
Sexwale will hark on about something to do with historical and cultural ties. USA sighs as it realise’s its one vote isn’t going to make much of a difference. Platini is pretty much irrelevant at this stage, as like Blatter he was irredeemable from the successive hits his reputation took. Even if he has not been formally indicted or charged, there is no way in hell he has a way back into this race.
The Vote
Prince Ali and Infantino are still in the race and UEFA casts their votes in their camps with Infantino edging it. Either way they get no support from the rest of the world, barring USA and maybe Canada voting for their man Prince Ali. Salman gets 75 votes as the AFC, CONMEBOL and OFC comes in swinging whilst a smattering of UEFA associations break ranks early. Sexwale pulls in a strong 85 votes with the sheer size of CAF and CONCACAF coming in big. Prince Ali and Infantino split the 53 votes of UEFA with Ali pulling 20 and Infantino 25. Both realise it’s over and drop out of the running. But the voting must go to an absolute majority of 139 so a second round commences. UEFA breaks and votes for Salman in strength and bolsters him by 53 to 128. A few rogue votes here and there go amiss but Sexwale was unable to pull his rivals to him and drops to an 81. Now let’s remember; their are 209 associations and you need an a simple majority of 105 to win. So Sheikh Salman wins. Queue thunderous applause and worried expressions from America. Prince Ali makes some indignant comment about how FIFA is still right up shit-creek. Infantino goes with a little more grace, under the hope he can still get position in the UEFA elections in March. Sexwale is left wondering whether or not it was his ridiculous last name that cost him the job.
Normal Service Resumed in Zurich
But what next for the beleaguered governing body? This is perhaps the most important thing. Here’s what will happen; nothing. No, I’m not being a pessimist. Earlier I said Sheikh Salman was a moderate and that’s because he stands for nothing in particular. Sexwale stands for the FIFA development agenda, much like Blatter and Havelange before him. Prince Ali stands for America’s interests in reforming FIFA. Infantino is a self serving politicrat who may have at least tried to reform. Platini was always just Blatter junior. Champagne was utterly, utterly irrelevant. As was Musa Bility who never stood a chance and thank god for that. Sheikh Salman on the other hand? He simply crossed enough borders as the man who wasn’t outwardly corrupt, was not heavily linked with corruption and was a fairly decent diplomatic figure. He was the moderate; he didn’t bow down to the lesser associations on the development agenda, but as a representative of them he still won their support. He didn’t dismiss the power bases of Football either, and won UEFA’s support as the least Blatter-like between him and Sexwale.
But he was on the committee who decided that Russia 2018 and Qatar 2022 will go ahead, so you can be damned sure his first action as President will not be to take that away, which was essentially what all this corruption business was about. So whilst the big beasts of FIFA corruption were hauled in front of the courts, the consequences of their corruption remains unchanged. Sheikh Salman introduces term limits to the Presidency though, for 3 terms or 15 years. But it means nothing; he knows he’ll see out all three terms as an incumbent FIFA President is almost impossible to depose barring federal investigations. Blatter lasted 17 years so we’re more or less going to see the same sort of semi-despotic regime return. Corruption at the small level will still exist as Sheikh Salman avoids ruffling too many feathers. A few Association Presidents are put on the chopping block but all the same infrastructure that meant that this corruption was inevitable is kept in place. Continental voting blocs, imbalanced voting and a lack of any real accountability to a judicial body is maintained. Ticket prices keep rising, so do player wages and agent interference and all the stuff the fans complain about in football. Maybe a bit of technology gets introduced along the way, but it was well overdue anyway. In 15 years we’re left wondering how the hell Sheikh Salman lasted so long as the Football Associations of the world prepare to vote in another politicrat to take charge of the greatest game on earth. It’s all happened before and it’s all happening again and the cycle will go on until someone realises to save FIFA it has to be destroyed.
Conclusion
This was FIFA’s chance for genuine reform, no doubt about it. But none of the candidates wanted genuine reform, after all they were all there because of the existing structures within FIFA in the first place. Sheikh Salman isn’t the worst option there, but nothing will change and corruption will still exist there, just in a decentralised way. Let’s give Blatter credit; everyone in FIFA was corrupt but they all had to go through him first. He organised it and restrained it do his own devices. A bit like Gaddafi in Libya. And like Gaddafi in Libya when the King is toppled so to do all the structures he kept to control the corruption. Infantino or Prince Ali were the best options of a bad bunch, but ultimately even they weren’t the candidates FIFA needed. This is yet another false dawn in FIFA’s history and whilst the opportunity was there to save FIFA that has now passed. A candidate did once exist to save FIFA, one with resolute principals, strong ideals and an iron will and determination to get things done. FIFA had it’s Stannis Baratheon and his name was Luis Figo. But even Figo realised it was all pointless and that he couldn’t save it.
So now we’re stuck with another fucking Lannister on the FIFA throne.
Sports & Politics 
