By: Omar Jatta
The Gambia Football Federation (GFF) will give it’s backing to the President of Asian Football Federation, Sheikh Salman bin Ebrahim Al Khalifa as its candidate to replace Sepp Blatter in Friday’s FIFA Presidential elections, according the state’s major news outlet, the Daily Observer.
The Gambia will take it’s place amongst the 209 FIFA member delegates to vote in the election to find the successor to former World Footfall Governing Body’s president [FIFA], Mr Joseph Sepp Blatter, who was relieved from the office as the head of the FIFA organisation back in December last year, after being found guilty of breaches surrounding a £1.3m ($2m) “disloyal payment” made to UEFA’s President Michel Platini in 2011. Bothe men were given lenthy bans from all football related activities by the organisation’s ethics committee, after concluding they’ve both demonstrated an “abusive execution” of their positions.
Before leaving The Gambia to join the other heads of Football associations and Federations in Zurich, Switzerland, the GFF president Lamin Kabba Bajo is quoted in the Observer, to have hinted The Gambia will be backing the Sheikh Salman from Bahrain. A decision which seemed to be cajoled by the African Football Federation [CAF] and WAFU [West African Football Union].
“The position of CAF is that Sheikh Salman is our candidate after he presented his manifesto to its members because we believe that he can help in developing the game in Africa,” Bajo told the Daily Observer.
“As an executive member of WAFU we also agreed that we will vote for Sheikh Salman because he will pursue and continue Blatter’s legacy to develop football in Africa so Gambia will definitely vote for him.”
In a recent executive meeting held in the Rwandan capital Kigali earlier this month, the CAF Executive members unanimously endorsed Sheikh Salman’s candidacy. Which followed the signing of a co-operation agreement between the Confederation of African Football [CAF] and the Asian Football Confederation [AFC], of which Salman is President.
“I am humbled by the support of CAF’s Executive Committee and tremendously encouraged by the unanimous decision to support my bid for the office of FIFA president”, Shaikh Salman said after the CAF Executive’s decision was announced.
“I am deeply honoured to have earned the trust of many of our African friends at this crucial stage of the campaigning effort,” he added.
Obviously the Bahraini’s campaign has been buoyed by the public backing of the African members, having already secured the full endorsement of all of Asia’s football presidents. These two federations form alsmost more than a quarter of the 209 strong FIFA Membership and their support will significantly boosts his quest to become the next leader of world football.
Sheikh Salman is also reported to have the support of some members in the Caribbean and South America members which makes him the favourite for the Presidency.
However, the decision made at the meeting in Kigali is not binding on CAF’s 54 member countries and Salman’s closest rival Gianni Infantino this week widened the dubiety over the African member’s loyalty after alleging that he is expecting to get more than half of the African votes, prompting a repudiation from the continental body.
But the Vice President of CAF Suketu Patel refuted any notion of disunity within the membership with a strongly worded message, saying:
“All (those) hoping to break up the sacred union and solidarity that have always been in the African football family are bound to failure.
With CAF very outspoken about its decision to back Salman to succeed Blatter, there is the possibility that if the Bahraini fails to win, it could mean a difficult working relationship between them and the new boss but Mr Bajo repudiated that possibility.
“This is the beauty of politics and democracy,” Bajo told Observer.
“And I think even if another candidate wins, that person will respect us even more for our open stance. CAF has taken the decision on our behalf and we are in agreement,” he concluded.
The other candidates for the FIFA Presidency includes Prince Ali Bin Al Hussein of Jordan, who contested against Sepp Blatter in the last election in May last year but was forced to withdraw after first round of the election.
Then you have the UEFA general secretary Gianni Infantino from Switzerland, former FIFA deputy secretary general Jerome Champagne from France and South Africa’s Tokyo Sexwale, an apartheid-era political prisoner turned multimillionaire mining tycoon, whom ironically has not got the backing of CAF.
