" # $

I WILL not fail, [it is] Africa that will fail if I do not go through.”

That was the sobering view offered by Fifa presidential candidate Tokyo Sexwale as the race to become the most powerful person in world football stepped up a gear yesterday.

Sexwale and rivals Gianni Infantino, Jerome Champagne and Sheikh Salman bin Ibrahim al Khalifa made an appearance at the Council of Southern African Football Associations (Cosafa) AGM in Sandton yesterday, determined to convince the regional football leaders why they should be elevated to the highest office in the game in February next year.

Sexwale did not mince his words and said it was an injustice that no African has ever been Fifa president in the 111-year existence of the world football governing body. Why not us?” asked Sexwale. You have got to show that this is an international body. If it was three year or five years... this is a century! Jerome [Champagne], it is the question and that is why the candidate from Africa will raise the issue of the origin. But a candidate who is not from Africa may not feel this, you know. Nine leaders of Fifa have all been from one area. Even [former Fifa president] João Havelange, who comes from Brazil, is of Belgian stock.”

Sexwale took things a step further and said Africa had warmed the bench for 111 years and it was time for Fifa to introduce a substitute into the game. You are sending a wrong signal if certain people can be accorded leadership and others are not. You are sending the signal that some are only good as a hunting ground for votes.... Africa must learn to trust itself. Africa must learn to have confidence in itself.”

Champagne, who claims he was one of the people who were instrumental in bringing the World Cup to South Africa in 2010, originally bid to become Fifa president last year and challenged suspended incumbent Sepp Blatter.

He declared himself a candidate in September 2014 but withdrew at the beginning of the year after failing to garner enough support.

Champagne directed a swipe at rival Infantino, who is also the Uefa general secretary, and asked where he was when the European football body worked tirelessly to ensure that South Africa lost the right to host the 2006 World Cup.

Infantino left the gathering early and was at pains to put some distance between himself and Uefa as he departed Sandton.

Let me say from the onset that I do not see myself at all as a Uefa candidate, he said. I am a candidate for football. That s the way I have lived all my life.”