Sepp Blatter will be absent for the first time in almost two decades as Fifa’s executive committee meets in Zurich today, although the governing body’s ability to begin a new era remains highly compromised. Reform and presidential elections are high on the agenda, but the old guard refuse to go quietly.
Michel Platini, the Uefa president, continues to insist that he is the right man to save Fifa, despite him also missing today’s meeting because of a 90-day suspension. Platini told Le Monde, the French newspaper, that despite the scandal surrounding his £1.35 million payment from Blatter, he is “the only one who can ensure that Fifa again becomes the home of football”.
However, with the Frenchman’s hopes seemingly destroyed by unanswered questions over that payment, the meeting will probably feature some behind-the-scenes manoeuvring to fill the void, with Sheikh Salman bin Ibrahim al-Khalifa, of Bahrain, among those jostling for influence.
The executive committee is due to discuss the presidential election, scheduled for February 26, and despite some suggestions that it should be postponed — or even cancelled to allow a full-scale overhaul — the expectation is that it will go ahead. The turmoil at Fifa has led to the installation of an acting secretary general in Markus Kattner and an acting president in Issa Hayatou, himself once rebuked by the International Olympic Committee.
Among other members, Wolfgang Niersbach, of Germany, has denied in recent days that he was aware of an alleged slush fund used to buy votes to host the 2006 World Cup. And there will be another empty seat where Marco Polo Del Nero, of Brazil, should sit. He has declined to travel to Switzerland since the arrests of Fifa members in May and is set to be replaced.
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The committee will hear a presentation from François Carrard, the independent chairman of the reform panel, although it remains to be seen if radical change is possible without Fifa turning to an outsider to succeed Blatter.
Platini seemingly blamed his former mentor for sabotaging his chances. Asked by Le Monde if Blatter had leaked the story of the £1.35 million, he replied: “Let’s say I have my suspicions.”
The Uefa president, who had been favourite for the post, has given fresh details about the agreement to be Blatter’s aide, which was never written down in a contract. Platini said the deal was agreed during a chat in Singapore in 1998. “ ‘How much do you want?’ Blatter asked. I said a million. ‘A million what?’ ‘Whatever you want: roubles, pounds, dollars.’ Euros hadn’t been introduced back then. He said, ‘OK, SwFr1 million a year.’ ”
Platini said that Blatter had asked him to defer some of the money because the secretary general earned SwFr300,000 “and you can’t be on more than three times his salary”. But Platini could still not explain why it was only in early 2011, in the run-up to an election in which he backed Blatter, that he chased money he was owed.