Blatter era ends as FIFA set to elect new leader

Champagne, Infantino clash

GENEVA, Feb 21, (AP): The Sepp Blatter era at FIFA is set to finally end Friday when soccer’s scandal-scarred world body picks a new president after nine months of crisis.

An election meeting designed to give FIFA a fresh start with a new leader could yet be overshadowed by its criminally corrupt past.

Voters return to Zurich this week unsure who is the next target of federal law enforcement agencies in the United States and Switzerland, who have sent FIFA into meltdown with waves of arrests, extraditions and guilty pleas.

Swiss prosecutors could decide this week is best to meet key witnesses in their widening case. Many soccer officials are making possibly their last working trip to Switzerland until May 2019, when the next scheduled FIFA election should be held in Zurich.

At the last election in May, Blatter won a fifth presidential term two days after FIFA’s favored five-star hotel in Zurich and its own headquarters were raided. The pressure of criminal investigations soon forced Blatter from his beloved FIFA in his 41st year on the payroll.

Now, leaders of FIFA’s 209 member federations visit the tiny Swiss city again to elect a successor for the now-banned 79-year-old who has been president since 1998. The winner will be just the fourth elected FIFA chief in more than 50 years.

Two front-runners have emerged in a five-candidate contest: Asia’s soccer leader, Sheikh Salman of Bahrain, and Gianni Infantino, the Swiss general secretary of European governing body UEFA.

The other candidates are: Former FIFA vice president Prince Ali of Jordan, who lost to Blatter in May; former FIFA official Jerome Champagne of France; and South African businessman Tokyo Sexwale, once an inmate of Robben Island prison with Nelson Mandela.

Infantino acknowledged that police could hit FIFA for the fourth time in nine months.

“They know what is best for their work to be done in the most efficient way,” Infantino told The Associated Press in a recent interview. “If I’m elected president of FIFA, what they can count on (is) not 100 but 200 percent with me to clean and to put anyone in jail who has done anything bad for football.”

The three previous strikes — arresting seven men, including two FIFA vice presidents, on May 27; interrogating Blatter and former protege Michel Platini on Sept 25; arresting two more FIFA vice presidents on Dec 3 — were on days that

Blatter

FIFA’s discredited executive committee met. It meets again Wednesday.

Sheikh Salman suggests government agencies have tried to influence FIFA politics. That view is shared by Blatter and Russian President Vladimir Putin, who claimed the US wants the 2018 World Cup taken from his country.

“Choosing the time and place during an election or an (executive committee) meeting,” Sheikh Salman told the AP this month of previous police raids, “I think this raises a lot of doubts on why, and leave people a bit suspicious on the intentions.”

Meanwhile, FIFA presidential candidate Jerome Champagne has criticised the plans of rival Gianni Infantino as financially “dangerous” for global soccer’s beleaguered ruling body.

Infantino’s campaign organisers said in response his proposals were feasible and could be achieved by savings in FIFA and possibly an increase in revenue.

In a letter to FIFA’s 209 member national associations (FAs), who each hold one vote in the election, Champagne suggested on Saturday that Infantino’s plans could add an extra $900 million to FIFA’s expenditure over the next four years.

Infantino, the general secretary of European soccer’s governing body UEFA since 2009, has promised to distribute 5 million dollars every four years to each FA for football development, plus $40 million to each of the six continental confederations over the same period.

Infantino said in an interview published Sunday there would be no deals among the candidates ahead of this week’s vote for a new president. “This is not the time for deals,” the 45-year-old UEFA executive told the Le Matin Dimanche weekly.

He was responding to a question on whether he might consider a deal with his main opponent Bahrain’s Asian Football Confederation president Sheikh Salman Bin Ebrahim Al-Khalifa ahead of Friday’s vote.

“There is no question of that... I think a democratic election is fundamental for the credibility of FIFA as an institution,” Infantino said. FIFA is in the throes of an unprecedented, wide-ranging scandal that has seen senior football executives suspended or fired, with disgraced long-time president Sepp Blatter and fallen head of European football, Michel Platini the most high-profile casualties. FIFA, Infantino insisted, “must be headed by a president legitimised through an election.”

“There is no doubt: I will be in Zurich on February 26 to win the election,” he said, stressing that “an electoral congress for the presidency is like the World Cup final: you have to win it.”

JOHANNESBURG, Feb 21, (AFP): AB de Villiers and Hashim Amla blasted South Africa to victory by nine wickets after England collapsed in the second Twenty20 international at the Wanderers Stadium on Sunday.

De Villiers and Amla made England’s total of 171 look puny as they thrashed 125 runs in a 55-ball opening stand.

De Villiers, on the ground on which he hit the world’s fastest one-day international century against the West Indies last season, thrashed 79 off 29 balls with six fours and six sixes.

On the way he reached his fifty off 21 balls, the fastest for South Africa.

Amla was slightly more restrained but played some powerful strokes in making 69 not out off 38 balls with eight fours and three sixes.

The ease of South Africa’s win, which completed a 2-0 series victory, did not look a possibility while England captain Eoin Morgan and Jos Buttler were pounding sixes in a fourth wicket stand of 96 off 55 balls.

England had reached 157 for three and seemed set for a total well in excess of 200.

But Buttler (54) and Morgan were out off successive balls and England lost their last seven wickets for 14 runs after they had looked set to post a total in excess of 200.

South African captain Faf du Plessis said he was pleased with the win but felt his team had only produced a “70 percent” performance with the ball.

“Unlike (the first game at) Newlands we started well with the ball,” said Du Plessis.

“The first three overs were excellent but then it got away from us a bit. But we pulled it back and that’s important.”

Du Plessis said there was room for improvement but South Africa would be confident going into the World Twenty20.

De Villiers said he was happy to be opening the batting in 20 overs cricket.

“I’ll have to keep performing but I’ll open for as long as they want me to.”

Morgan, who was unlucky to be run out for 38 when bowler Kyle Abbott deflected a powerful drive from Ben Stokes into the stumps, said the collapse was “disappointing”.

But he was even more disappointed with England’s bowling.

“We started terribly with the ball,” he said.

“We missed our lengths and allowed them to play their natural game. When batsmen like that are in they will punish you.”

Morgan said, though, that he felt England could do well at the World Twenty20 in India next month.

“We are lacking experience but we have talent and I honestly think we are on the right track to win an ICC event.”

England’s collapse started when Buttler hit the third ball of the 17th over from Abbott into the covers where Du Plessis held a low catch, which had to be confirmed by the television umpire.

Buttler made 54 off 28 balls with four fours and four sixes. South Africa’s batsman AB de Villiers (left), watches his shot as England’s wicketkeeper Jos Buttler (right), looks on during the second and the final T20 cricket match between South Africa and England at the Wanderers Stadium in Johannesburg,

South Africa, Feb 21. (AP) and Smith was gone.

Adam Voges was on two with Nathan Lyon, sent in as nightwatchman, on four.

Until Smith’s dismissal, the only moment of concern in his classy innings came when he was felled by a fearsome Wagner bouncer in the last over before tea.

He lay prone on the ground for a few moments, but as the New Zealand players rushed to his aid, Smith staggered to his feet and after medical attention he resumed his innings with a single off the next ball.