D-Day for Tokyo and Fifa today
JOBURG - Today (26 February) is D-Day for South Africa's Tokyo Sexwale and Fifa as the scandal-ridden world soccer governing body goes to the polls to elect a new leader.
This follows the ousting of former Fifa president Sepp Blatter a little less than a week after his controversial re-election, bringing to an end his 17-year reign. Blatter was credited with bringing the 2010 Fifa World Cup to South Africa, and in Africa for the very first time since the inception of the competition.
Blatter, together with Uefa president Michel Platini, were initially given eight-year bans by the Fifa Ethics Committee which was later reduced to six years for the pair by the Fifa Appeals Committee. This means that Blatter and Platini have been banned from all football activities until 2022.
The ousting of Blatter as president opened the door for fresh elections which will take place today in Zurich, Switzerland. The candidates include Prince Ali bin al-Hussein of Jordan, Uefa general secretary Gianni Infantino, Sheikh Salman bin Ebrahim al-Khalifa of Bahrain, Sexwale, and Frenchman Jerome Champagne, a former Fifa deputy secretary general.
Sexwale, a football outsider, is said to stand the least chance of being elected after his own football governing body, the South African Football Association, did not endorse his candidature and urged the former ANC struggle icon to call it quits.
Sexwale then approached the Confederation of African Football (Caf) in the hope that the continental mother body would endorse him, but also failed in his bid when Caf told him their preferred candidate was al-Khalifa.
But the ‘never say die’ Sexwale would not entertain any of that as he carried on with his ambition to lead Fifa. Sexwale left South Africa on 23 February for Zurich after telling reporters he was not giving up the ‘Fifa ghost’.
Saying he was unsure if even his own country’s football association would vote for him, Sexwale said voting took place privately and no one knew what happens there. “If you ask me how many associations have said they will back me, quite a number have said they will not,” Sexwale admitted.
As he stubbornly insists on taking a shot in the Fifa presidential elections, all that can be said now is, good luck, Tokyo.
