On the Scene in Kuala Lumpur - Sheikh Salman "Not Fit" to Lead AFC, Suggests Rival

(ATR) Twenty-four hours from the Asian Football Confederation presidential elections, one of the candidates Yousuf Al-Serkal has launched a blistering attack on rival Sheikh Salman bin Ebrahim Al Khalifa saying the Bahraini is "not fit" to run the AFC.

Sheikh Salman remains frontrunner ahead of Thursday’s vote in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia despite fierce scrutiny of his role in the suppression of pro-democracy protests in Bahrain and the involvement of the Olympic Council of Asia (OCA) in his bid.

The head of Bahrain's football association is alleged to have chaired a committee that helped identify a group of national team players so they could be arrested following the country's pro-democracy uprising in February 2011.

More than 150 athletes, coaches and referees from a number of sports were jailed after a special committee identified them from photos of the protests. The Bahrain Centre for Human Rights accuse him of "human rights violations … against players, administrators, referees and clubs who participated in the democracy protests".

Asked in an exclusive interview with Around the Rings about the allegations and whether his opponent was a "fit and proper" candidate, Al-Serkal said that they showed him to be a "fitter" person than Salman to lead Asian football.

"I myself in general think that I am a better choice than Sheikh Salman," he told ATR.

"In this case as well, I think I’m fitter. He’s not fit. When it comes to politics I’m a sportsman. I understand nothing in politics."

Al-Serkal’s attack comes as the presidential field was reduced with the withdrawal of Hafez el Madlej today.

Sources suggest that the Saudi has not had the requisite backing of his country’s government to launch a serious bid. His formal withdrawal was announced early evening here.

The Saudi's exit leaves Sheikh Salman and Al-Serkal facing just the challenge of Thailand’s Worawi Makudi. Questions have been raised about the seriousness of the FIFA vice-president’s challenge, with cracks appearing in the ASEAN voting bloc, which was supposed to be unanimously behind his bid.

Australia is one of several countries in the region understood to be favouring Sheikh Salman’s candidacy.

In Bin Hammam’s Shadow

Allegations of ballot paper manipulation, electoral corruption and foreign interference fill the first 20 pages of the New Straits Times, Malaysia’s leading English language newspaper.

But here in Kuala Lumpur the only story is of Sunday’s general election; the AFC beanfest meriting just half a page.

Football’s sense of self importance, however, knows no bounds, and in the Mandarin Oriental Hotel a parallel universe exists where delegations of football politicians – many in town since last Saturday - lobby, haggle, and plot their way to the 31 votes that will bring them one of the most powerful jobs in world football.

Last night all four candidates thronged the lobby, which has virtually been taken over by the AFC. Many delegates stayed up until the very small hours so that they could catch up with the Champions League semi-final, which kicked off shortlybefore 3am local time.

Makudi made a brief appearance before lunch, but Sheikh Salman and Al-Medlej were nowhere to be seen. Other giants of football politics, such as FIFA president Sepp Blatter and his UEFA counterpart Michel Platini, Jerome Valcke, Ángel María Villar-Llona were spotted too.

"The first thing they need to do when all this is over, is replace the lobby carpet – I’ll have worn a hole in it with all the pacing up and down I’ve done," joked FIFA ExCo candidate, Hassan Al Thawadi, who appeared relaxed, dressed in sneakers and a casual shirt.

Beneath the congenial atmosphere, however, a sense of paranoia persists, with the ghost of the banned former AFC president Mohamed Bin Hammam seemingly stalking every corridor of this luxurious hotel.

The eight-year ban yesterday given (for reasons unexplained) to his one-time ally, Vernon Manilal Fernando, was a stark reminder that FIFA justice can be particularly punitive for the Qatari’s friends.

There is a strong sense that Sheikh Salman’s candidacy is the one favoured by FIFA and that elements are working against those even tenuously linked to Bin Hammam and Qatar. At the same time Fernando was understood to be lobbying on behalf of Sheikh Salman. Confusion as well as paranoia reigns.

Allegations that the Olympic Council of Asia (OCA) is ‘interfering’ in the vote have been rebutted with an urgency previously unseen by federations, such as those of the Philipines, Indonesia and Kuwait.

But the reality is that the OCA will have a crucial say in tomorrow’s election, with many considering its president Sheikh Ahmad Al-Fahad Al-Ahmed Al-Sabah the kingmaker. The Kuwaiti is a close ally of Sepp Blatter and played a key role in ousting former FIFA vice president (and one time presidential hopeful) Chung Mong-joon in January 2011.

Neither he nor Blatter will favour a candidate with past links to Bin Hammam, despite the Qatari’s claims that he no longer seeks influence in football.

Statements have been circulated by the Kuwait Football Association – which is headed by Sheikh Ahmad – simultaneously denying allegations of OCA interference and expressing its "deep concern" about a media report that Bin Hammam has visited various national associations in order to support the candidacies of Al-Serkal, Makudi and Al Thawadi. The fact that he might simultaneously support rival candidacies speaks loudly of the paranoia and complexities of AFC politics.

"Upon my arrival today in Kuala Lumpur I have witnessed that the entire group of the former AFC president was present and speaking to various members of the AFC family," noted Husain Al Musallam, Vice Chairman of the KFA’s International Relations and Legal Committee, in a statement yesterday.

Sheikh Ahmad, who prowls the hotel with his bodyguard in tow, himself is not talking to the media and did not respond to a request for an interview.

"Where is Bin Hammam? He is not here," said Al Serkal this morning.

"Who is here? Sheikh Ahmad is here. The OCA is here. Who is running? I know I am running. Can you tell me is it clear Sheikh Salman is running? Can you picture Sheikh Salman alone? You close your eyes and who do you see? You see someone else. Sheikh Salman is only a shadow."

Whatever happens tomorrow, one grim certainty remains: we’ll have to go through this all over again in two years time.

For continuing coverage from Kuala Lumpur, follow World Football INSIDER.

Reported in Kuala Lumpur by James Corbett

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