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FIFA Presidential Debate mired in murky waters as candidates withdraw

By on January 25, 2016

The press release and invitation arrived on Friday. FIFA’s Presidential Debate at European Parliament is tomorrow. I am based on the West Coast of the United States. The debate is in Brussels. For most any other event, an invitation at such short notice would have been highly impractical to attend.

This, however, was eye-catching. Beyond the opportunity to visit European Parliament, the debate itself was set to be a key event leading up to FIFA’s historic presidential election late next month, broadcast live on ESPN. In the end, the logistics proved too hard to plan over the weekend, but it was a close call.

I’m a parallel universe, I would have been on the plane to Amsterdam as the news hot that Prince Ali bin al-Hussein and Tokyo Sexwale, two of the three candidates due to attend (Gianni Infantino was only scheduled to appear via a video presentation and Bahraini candidate Sheikh Salman bin Ebrahim al-Khalifa had declined the invitation) pulled out at the last minute, plunging the FIFA debate into chaos.

ESPN cancelled its plans to air the debate live on television, instead just streaming it online, and Jerome Champagne will now be the keynote speaker at the event.

What had the potential to be a landmark event in FIFA’s movement towards transparency has been mired in more murky politics. The reasons behind Prince Ali and Sexwale’s late withdrawals from the debate at the last minute still remain unclear, although it is suspected that worries over political interference may be behind it and that a complaint made by Sheikh Salman or Infantino might have sparked the candidates into such drastic action.

“It was brought to our attention that there may be a breach of the electoral rules so we had to regretfully pull out,” a spokesperson for Prince Ali said in a press release, per The Guardian, yet it is still doubted whether the debate would in fact consist a breach of FIFA election rules.

Damian Collins, co-founder of NewFIFANow, who co-organized the event, sounded understandably annoyed in a statement released by the organization, via goal.com.

“We are merely trying to put legitimate questions about the future of FIFA to Presidential candidates as members of various parliaments as well as on behalf of fans and other key stakeholders,” he said.

“Any organization interested in, or committed to, democracy, transparency and accountability would understand this, as should the people who want to be FIFA President. We are just seeing the same old FIFA at play and they have learned nothing about what they need to do to try to rebuild trust and credibility from the broader community.

“Rather than helping to rebuild FIFA’s credibility in the broader community, this outcome will just add to the impression that people at FIFA do not want open discussion about the future and reform of the organization.

“Why don’t the FIFA Presidential candidates want to be subject to the same level of questioning and scrutiny that would be normal in any organization run on democratic principles?”

The debate will still go ahead, but has been far overshadowed by Prince Ali and Sexwale’s withdrawals.

Photo credit: MCaviglia www.mcaviglia.ch (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

About Alex Morgan

Alex Morgan, founder of Football Every Day, lives and breaths football from the West Coast of the United States in California. Aside from founding Football Every Day in January of 2013, Alex has also launched his own journalism career and hopes to help others do the same with FBED. He covers the San Jose Earthquakes as a beat reporter for QuakesTalk.com and his work has also been featured in the BBC's Match of the Day Magazine.