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Ali’s candidacy raises questions about resolve to unseat Blatter

The question nags: If the great powers of Europe really want to depose Sepp Blatter, why are they hiding behind a Major-General in the Jordanian army who in May greeted FIFA’s papal leader in Amman by welcoming him “in his second home” and thanking him for his “continuous encouragement and support not only for Jordanian football but also for West Asia and worldwide”?

Ali’s candicacy raises the question about why no one from UEFA has the courage to take up the fight foisted upon the prince, whose own confederation is currently in Blatter’s camp. Photo: Getty Images

Ali’s candicacy raises the question about why no one from UEFA has the courage to take up the fight foisted upon the prince, whose own confederation is currently in Blatter’s camp. Photo: Getty Images

The question nags: If the great powers of Europe really want to depose Sepp Blatter, why are they hiding behind a Major-General in the Jordanian army who in May greeted FIFA’s papal leader in Amman by welcoming him “in his second home” and thanking him for his “continuous encouragement and support not only for Jordanian football but also for West Asia and worldwide”?

Back then — seven months ago, to be precise — Prince Ali bin Hussein, the third son of the late King Hussein, was a FIFA vice-president with misgivings about the conduct of the world governing body.

Now, he is FIFA’s vice buster — the hero who had stepped from the cowering pack to stop the 79-year-old Blatter from winning a fifth term.

There is a lot to chew on in Ali’s CV: Princeton education, Sandhurst training, stint as a pathfinder in Jordan’s special forces. But the most luminous detail about the regal challenger to Blatter is that he was encouraged to run by UEFA and its president Michel Platini.

Ali is known to have agonised about his decision to move from low-key reformer of women’s and youth football to would-be slayer of the most powerful figure in world sport.

Which begs the question: Why does nobody from UEFA have the courage to take up the fight foisted upon the prince, whose own confederation is currently in Blatter’s camp? There are five Europeans on Blatter’s scandal-battered Executive Committee (ExCo), yet all we can muster by way of a coup d’etat is the mysterious Jerome Champagne and a Jordanian prince whose Asian confederation leader, Sheikh Salman bin Ibrahim Khalifa of Bahrain, had pledged his support for Blatter in November.

With Africa’s 54 votes already in Blatter’s bag, Ali’s ticket is to shift the focus away from administrative chaos and restore FIFA as a “service organisation”. Nice idea, but since he had joined the ExCo in 2011, you wonder what took him so long. The dishonourable at FIFA House has filled its boots. The more honourable have stood by and watched, which makes them part of the problem.

Ali’s main claim to fame was over-turning FIFA’s ban on headscarves for women during games — a victory, he insisted, for individual freedom. He was also quick to argue for the full publication of Michael Garcia’s report on the 2018 and 2022 World Cup bids, declaring that “the entire football family as well as its sponsors and those who follow the game worldwide have a full right to know the contents of the report in the spirit of complete openness”.

That mess is still festering. An “appropriate” form of Garcia’s report will not be released until ethics committee charges against FIFA ExCo members Angel Villar Llona of Spain, Belgium’s Michel D’Hooghe and Thailand’s Worawi Makudi have been resolved. As the BBC’s Dan Roan pointed out, Ali will lose his FIFA vice-presidency in May anyway and has given himself a chance to walk out as the good guy.

So while this intriguing intervention stirs the waters of FIFA politics, it is hardly civil war in Zurich.

Ali has the look of someone pushed forward by a pack of schoolboys to confront a bully with the promise: “We’re all right behind you.” For UEFA not to propose their own candidate, Platini has placed the safer bet of trying to inflict damage on Blatter, who survives by patronage. The long shot is that Ali wins and becomes a UEFA proxy. Either way, it lacks the drama of a full revolt, which FIFA needed. It confirms too the obvious truth that corrupt organisations are almost never reformed from within, because those proposing the reforms are either implicated or had previously turned a blind eye.

FIFA’s best hope is that overseas law enforcement agencies blow the doors off the culture that landed us with Russia 2018 and Qatar 2022. At this stage, the Major-General looks outgunned. THE DAILY TELEGRAPH

Paul Hayward is chief sports writer at The Daily Telegraph.

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