INSIDER World Cup Diary - Bin Hammam Backs Europe for 2018 World Cup

(ATR) Asian Football Confederation president Mohamed Bin Hammam used his address to the confederation’s extraordinary congress in Johannesburg to support a European bid for the 2018 World Cup.

England, Spain-Portugal, Holland-Belgium and Russia are in the race to host the finals against the USA and Australia – which is also an AFC member.

"I want to give my sympathy on behalf of the AFC that we are going to recognize and support Europe and their desire to host the 2018 tournament," he said on Tuesday.

"AFC’s four representatives of the FIFA Executive Committee are looking forward to see the World Cup back to Asia in 2022. Australia, Korea, Qatar and Japan have already put in very strong bids to host the prestigious event.

"In this event Asia is looking for the support and motivation of our colleagues in the FIFA executive committee."

The address - the outcome of which wasn’t voted upon by the AFC Congress - will be construed as another blow for the Australian delegation, whose leaders Frank Lowy and Ben Buckley, were present at the Gallagher Convention Centre Congress.

Despite Japan’s recent withdrawal from the running for 2018, Australia has refused to give up on securing that tournament.

But Bin Hammam later told reporters that the AFC wouldn’t use its position to influence the votes of its four FIFA Ex-co members when voting for who will host the 2018 finals.

"It will be an open bid and everybody is free to support anyone," said Bin Hammam. "But our support is for Europe when it comes to 2018.

"The mood inside the FIFA Executive Committee is that Europe should host the 2018 version."

World Cup laws abused by host cities

Johannesburg’s ceaseless traffic jams seem to be good news for at least one sector of the city’s economy. Street hawkers, barred from selling their wares near to the stadiums, are to be found at virtually every set of traffic lights throughout Johannesburg.

A honk of a vuvuzela, the plastic trumpet that will be a common sight at every stadium, usually signals the arrival of the intrepid sellers offering a thin selection of cheap flags and scarves – with not a $100 Zakumi doll in sight.

If the streams of banners all over the city and on many cars are anything to go by, they seem to be doing a brisk trade.

Alas, for some zealous police, even this is too much. While sitting in another jam near Soccer City, venue for the opening match and final, a blur of police lights in the distance was followed by two cops racing through the parked cars after a teenage hawker, his pathetic wares balled up under his sweater.

It left me wondering, is this really what a World Cup is all about?

A leading human rights organization says that laws brought in to satisfy FIFA regulations for hosting the World Cup are being abused by host cities to remove vulnerable South Africans from their jurisdictions.

Amnesty International’s latest country report is severely critical of the use of World Cup by-laws to expel homeless people and street traders from "controlled access sites" and exclusion zones around World Cup venues. Amnesty says that the laws are "particularly prejudicial" in a country where many are "totally reliant" on the informal economy for their survival.

It has called on the South African government to end "arbitrary arrests and otherabuses against poor South Africans" "through the misuse of local government by-laws and World Cup-related regulations and to "institute an independent and full investigation into the alleged abuses by police and local government authorities, and ensure access to justice and compensation for those affected".

Amnesty has also raised concerns that the preoccupation with tournament security leaves the poorest South Africans, many immigrants who have fled conflict in countries like Zimbabwe and Congo, particularly vulnerable. Two years ago, large-scale anti-immigrant riots in Johannesburg left almost 50 people dead.

No love-in for Korean delegations

For all the criticism and derision he so regularly faces, FIFA boss Sepp Blatter is one of the most articulate believers and convincing voices on the redemptive power of football.

"Football can connect people, football can reconnect people," he told yesterday’s AFC Congress.

"This is the message that we have to give to our youth, your youth. Football can touch the world and provide a better future. I know all the difficulties, you know all the difficulties, but football can help."

In front of him were delegations from the North and South Korean federations, sitting within touching distance of each other.

But a fortnight after publication of a report into the sinking of a South Korean naval vessel in March, which blamed a torpedo from a North Korean submarine – threatening to break the uneasy détente in the region – there was not even a flicker of recognition between the two parties.

Indonesians elusive again

After nearly a year of trying, INSIDER finally caught a glimpse of Nurdin Halid, the convicted fraudster who used to run the Indonesian Football Federation (PSSI) from his prison cell.

Halid, who led the country’s farcical World Cup bid before FIFA kicked them out of the bid race in March, was always impossible to get hold of while optimistically bidding for the 2022 finals.

Last December, Halid failed to turn up to the World Cup bidding expo in Cape Town, his colleagues citing "important business" to attend to back home. Subsequently, he became a hate figure in Indonesia after the country’s elimination from the Asian Cup.

But suddenly, here he was in Johannesburg, cutting the breeze with fellow delegates.

INSIDER had so many questions to ask: about the aborted World Cup bid; the latest judicial probe into his affairs; the Facebook hate campaign. But as quickly as he appeared, so he vanished into the dining room, where Korea's FIFA Ex-co member Chung Mong-joon was hosting a lunch that was off-limits for assembled journalists.

Instead I had a chat with Football Federation Australia CEO Ben Buckley – who is still a World Cup bid leader, but one with a much less colourful past.

Blatter watch

The FIFA president buzzed around the extraordinary congresses staged by FIFA’s six confederations in and around the FIFA hub of Sandton.

At the AFC Congress he was so eager to emphasise his closeness to his "brother" – and potential rival for his presidency – Mohamed Bin Hammam that I was left wondering if he might change his name to confirm the kinship. Josep Bin Hammam for FIFA president?

World Cup in numbers

13 – percentage of South Africans who believe their country will win the tournament.

Weather in Johannesburg/Cape Town

Sunny with highs of 16°C expected in both World Cup cities today.

Withreporting from WFI's European correspondent James Corbett inJohannesburg (james@worldfootballinsider.com)

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