FIFA Presidency: No Nigerian in sight as deadline ends

All the talk of a Nigerian Presidency of the Federation of International Football Associations (FIFA) yesterday ended like  hot air blown into a balloon, with the deadline for

submission of nomination expired last night, with neither  Segun Odegbami nor Orji Uzor Kalu submitting their forms, as at press time.

The two Nigerian gladiators, the former, a 1980 Nations Cup winner and the latter, a two-time Governor of Abia State, had in the last couple of months been involved a two-way battle to get the nod of the Amaju Pinnick-led Executive Committee of the Nigeria Football Federation to run for the biggest office in world football.

Odegbami and Kalu

Since it became clear that Sepp Blatter’s successor would emerge at an extraordinary congress next February 26, the race for the plum job has assumed an intense and frenetic pace, with many self-professed football buffs entering the fray, with little or no understanding of the dynamics involved to aspire for the position.

While the NFF had earlier hesitated to back Odegbami and Kalu, it later buckled, with reports that it endorsed Odegbami, who we however gathered as at press time, was yet to file his nomination with FIFA.

As at the filing of this report, only seven candidates had submitted their nominations, with UEFA supporting a ‘holding’ application from its general secretary, Gianni Infantino.

Sports Vanguard can report authoritatively that Odegbami and Kalu might have fallen off the way because of the qualification demands, which comprise a minimum of five written endorsements from national football federations plus a declaration of a role in the game in two of the past five years.

Besides the submission of their nomination forms, all aspiring contenders will have their submissions put through an integrity test by the Ethics Committee before being confirmed, formally, as candidates to stand to succeed Blatter on February 26.

For clarification purpose, the seven hopefuls vying for Blatter’s position include Prince Ali bin Al Hussein of Jordan, Musa Bility, who is the President of the Liberian Football Federation, Jerome Champagne, Gianni Infantino, who is the General Secretary of UEFA, David Nakhid, a one time Trinidad international, Michel Platini, who is the suspended President of UEFA and Tokyo Sexwale, a South African businessman and head of FIFA’s Palestine-Israel Monitoring Commission.

However confusion surrounded a planned candidacy from Asian Confederation head, Sheikh Salman bin Ebrahim Al Khalifa of Bahrain, with suggestions that he might have been advised to step back after last-minute negotiations because of his alleged role in the detention and torture of footballers and other athletes in a Bahrain crackdown in 2011. But Sheikh Salman has always denied the claims.

The Nigerian no-show is bound to be a bizzare end to a late-minute foray into the global politics of world football by Odegbami and Kalu, who had hitherto been advised to withdraw their intentions because of their perceived lightweight status.

They were expected to have toed the way of the likes of Zico, David Ginola, Ramon Vega who all withdrew from the race after earlier declaring their intentions to succeed Blatter.

Interestingly, Zico, who like Odegbami, is a Brazilian legend, on seeking the support of his own Brazilian confederation, was told it would back him only if he could first find four other countries willing to nominate him, which sadly he was unable to find.