Melbourne: The Asian Football Confederation has reaffirmed its support for embattled Fifa boss Sepp Blatter and pushed for Friday’s presidential election to go ahead despite the corruption scandal that has rocked football’s global governing body.
The AFC, which represents 47 member nations, has been a staunch ally of the 79-year-old Swiss and the bloc’s support will be vital for his hopes of clinging to the presidency for a fifth term.
“The Asian Football Confederation expresses its disappointment and sadness at Wednesday’s events in Zurich whilst opposing any delay in the Fifa Presidential elections to take place on Friday May 29 in Zurich,” the AFC said in a statement posted on its website (the-afc.com) on Thursday.
“Furthermore, the AFC reiterates its decision taken at the AFC Congress in Sao Paulo in 2014, endorsed at subsequent Congresses in Melbourne and Manama in 2015, to support Fifa President Joseph S. Blatter.”
Fifa has been thrown into renewed crisis with the arrests of seven of the governing body’s most powerful officials in Switzerland on Wednesday over corruption allegations.
The AFC suspended its general secretary Alex Soosay earlier this month after a Malaysian newspaper reported he had asked another official to hide some documents during a corruption probe.
“The AFC is against any form of corruption in football and fully supports any actions taken by the independent Fifa Ethics Committee where wrongdoing may have occurred, whether such actions affect Asian officials or otherwise,” the AFC said.
“The AFC is still undergoing its own process of reform and has taken many concrete steps in the last two years to improve governance in the Confederation, whilst recognising that there is still much work to do.”
Though the AFC’s top brass have declared Asia will vote for Blatter as a bloc, other officials at a January congress in Melbourne would not rule out some dissent.
“It’s a free vote and the declaration by the president of the AFC, Shaikh Salman, that Asia will vote as a bloc for Blatter is arrogant in the extreme and disrespectful of his own membership,” Australian Les Murray, a former member of Fifa’s ethics committee wrote in his blog on local broadcaster SBS’s website (theworldgame.sbs.com.au).
Meanwhile, Kenya and other member countries of the East and Central Africa Football Associations (CECAFA) will also still vote for Blatter, sources said on Thursday.
Three Football Kenya Federation (FKF) officials led by its president Sam Nyamweya are currently in Zurich for the annual general congress, and a spokesman said Kenya would not reverse the decision made collectively with CECAFA to support Blatter for a fifth term.
“The decision to support Blatter was already made before the current corruption crisis. There is not likely to be any change of mind now,” a senior FKF source told AFP.
“There are a lot of crises in football everywhere, even here in Kenya. It is only people with a hard skin who can survive,” he added.
The presidents of CECAFA, which brings together 13 regional football federations in the East and African region, met in Nairobi last month and decided to again back the controversial Fifa supremo against Jordanian Prince Ali Bin Al Hussain.
“President Blatter’s overwhelming support in Africa is premised not only on his unparalleled dedication and commitment in supporting development of football in the poor countries, which constitute the majority of African countries, but also on his support in pursuit of African interests,” they said in a statement after the meeting.
“He has always considered the African continent as an important constituency of Fifa.”