Kuala Lumpur: Asia’s football chief threw his support behind Fifa president Sepp Blatter’s re-election bid on Saturday as the 78-year-old looked increasingly certain to win a fifth term.
Asian Football Confederation (AFC) president Shaikh Salman Bin Ebrahim Al Khalifa, who will also seek re-election next year, said the Swiss had done much for football in Asia.
On Friday Blatter, after several strong hints, announced his candidacy for elections in May and he looks set to win after UEFA leader Michel Platini said he would not challenge.
“Joseph S. Blatter has always been supportive of Asia and has placed great importance in the development of Asian football through various FIFA programmes,” Shaikh Salman said on the AFC website.
“Our growth in world football can also be credited to the dynamic relationship that the AFC has with FIFA under the guidance of Mr. Blatter.”
Shaikh Salman’s backing is significant for Blatter because the AFC includes 46 members, making it one of world body FIFA’s biggest confederations.
The Bahraini royal’s announcement said he “trusts that the Asian football family will be united in its support for the candidacy of Mr Blatter”.
Blatter’s only challenger so far in the May 29 election is Jerome Champagne, 56, a former FIFA deputy secretary-general from France.
His re-election bid is controversial after he pledged not to seek another term when he won his fourth four-year stint at the helm in 2011.
FIFA has also faced criticism over the bidding process for hosting the 2018 and 2022 World Cups, which has been the subject of a long-running investigation.
The corruption probe into the bids will, however, stay secret, Blatter said — rejecting a request from the chief investigator to make his report public.
Blatter said FIFA’s ethics rules state that all such investigations should be confidential, and that no member of his executive committee asked for the report to be published at its meeting on Friday. He also chided ethics prosecutor Michael Garcia for issuing a press release to request that his investigation be published, rather than contacting Blatter personally.
“The FIFA president or secretary general have not had any demands or requests from Mr Garcia to speak with us,” Blatter said at a news conference. “The only contact that we have had ... was his press releases.”
Garcia issued a statement on Wednesday calling for FIFA’s ruling board to allow “appropriate publication” of his work. FIFA’s ethics code only allows summaries of the actual verdict to be released.
Garcia, a former US Attorney, has given FIFA’s ethics judge Joachim Eckert first-draft reports totalling 430 pages from his team investigating alleged unethical behaviour by senior FIFA officials during the bidding campaigns won by Russia and Qatar.
Several FIFA board members who joined since the December 2010 votes have publicly backed Garcia’s push to relax secrecy, with some seeking full disclosure.
“Most of the requests coming for the publication of this report were from people (that) were not there on the second of December when the decision was taken,” Blatter said. “Today there was not any longer any requests from any of these members in the FIFA to publish this report.”
Garcia’s initial reports recommend further action against some voters, according to a FIFA statement released September 5. At a FIFA-hosted conference last week, Garcia talked of building public confidence by announcing detailed charges.
Eckert has set an early-November deadline to finish reading the initial reports, then Garcia can request opening formal cases.
Final verdicts are expected around April next year. Eckert has suggested he will limit sanctions to individuals, and leave Blatter’s board to decide whether to take action against Russia or Qatar.
