Bin Hammam to take Blatter on

Asian Football Confederation President Mohamed Bin Hammam has made his intentions clear to challenge Sepp Blatter for the Fifa presidency.

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London – The fact he will be bidding to become only the fourth Fifa president in half a century amply illustrates the size of the mountain facing the ambitious Mohamed Bin Hammam, who on Friday announced his bid to unseat Sepp Blatter as head of global soccer.

Since Englishman Stanley Rous assumed office in 1961, Fifa has had just three presidents, and only eight in total since world soccer's governing body was formed 107 years ago.

All have been European, or from European stock like Brazilian Joao Havelange.

Whether a 61-year-old Qatari businessman is about to join that elite club is the matter of some considerable debate.

Rous held office for 13 years until Havelange beat him in an election in 1974 with Sepp Blatter succeeding the Brazilan 24 years later.

Blatter may be 75 now, but he clearly has no intention of giving up his position without a massive fight against the Qatari president of the Asian Football Confederation (AFC).

Bin Hammam, a familiar figure at world soccer's major events either in his flowing robes or a smart business suit, rose through Qatari sports administration in the 1970s and 1980s at the same time as amassing a personal fortune while the tiny gulf emirate's economy rapidly expanded to became one of the world's richest countries.

Bin Hammam made the jump from Asian soccer circles into the wider international arena when he was elected on to the Fifa executive committee in 1996 and for much of that time was a close ally of Blatter.

He played pivotal roles in Blatter's election victories in 1998 and 2002 but has become increasingly estranged from the president since then and the Qatari now clearly believes he has enough votes from around the world to end Blatter's 13-year reign as president

Before formally declaring his bid on Friday, Bin Hammam outlined what he would do differently.

“I want to see more transparency in Fifa and I want to widen the decision-making base and bodies within Fifa.

“I would engage stakeholders more. We should respect the clubs more, and the clubs should also respect the member associations.”

For either to win the election, they must convince two-thirds of Fifa's 208 member nations – 138 of them – to vote their way.

For Bin Hammam to win would require an enormous switch of support away from Blatter who beat Issa Hayatou of Cameroon by 139-56 votes in the last election in 2002 and was re-elected by acclamation of the 208 members in 2007.

Bin Hammam is clearly a shrewd and successful political operator whose enormous influence helped Qatar win the right to stage the 2022 World Cup finals when Fifa's executive committee voted on the issue in December.

Whether Fifa's member nations will now give him their backing at the Fifa Congress on June 1 is clearly a gamble worth taking. – Reuters

Source: http://www.iol.co.za/bin-hammam-to-take-blatter-on-1.1043897

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