Powerful Kuwaiti sheikh changes goalposts in Asian soccer
Mariyam Mohamed Didi lost her bid for a seat in the Asian Football Federation ( AFC) last week because of strong lobbying against her by Kuwait’s Sheikh Ahmad al-Fahad al-Sabah, who is a member of the Royal family and runs the Olympic Council of Asia.
The New York Times reported that the Maldivian did not realise a powerful Arab sheikh would play a significant role in deciding exactly who gets a seat at soccer’s top table.
As a result of the lobbying, the AFC decided to re- elect Bangladesh’s Mahfuza Akhter Kiron, “who was practically unknown when she beat more experienced challengers in 2017, and has rarely spoken during her tenure in the $250,000 a year post,” the Times said.
Ms Kiron had the backing of the Kuwaiti Sheikh, who reportedly steered voters toward his desired outcome, according a complaint Ms Didi filed with A.F.C.’s election oversight panel.
At the AFC’s elections, the sheikh’s luxury suite at Kuala Lumpur’s Hyatt Hotel, close to the venue where voters had gathered, was where decisions were taken, according to officials who met him. They included Ms Didi, described as a soccer official from the Maldives. She met him in his suite.
In the complaint and in an interview with The New York Times, Ms Didi provided a rare glimpse of how power func
tions at the highest levels of soccer, and how little has changed even in the aftermath of a major scandal in 2015.
Sheikh Ahmad, she said, told her to drop out of the election because he had already decided to back Ms Kiron. If she did as she was told, he would be able to place Ms Didi in another position, either at International Federation of Association Football (FIFA) or within Asian soccer. If she didn’t, her career was effectively over, and her country, would also suffer, he suggested, according to the Times.
“He said this is how it works in politics, it’s not football,” Ms Didi recalled of the meeting in a telephone interview. “He said: ‘It’s not based on experience, it’s the relationships we have with each other.’ And that was the end.”
Ms Didi tried to convince him to change his mind, but he would not. “I said, ‘Please don’t do this,’” she said. “I didn’t want to withdraw. I just wanted to tell him not to use his powers to influence this.”
A spokesman for Sheikh Ahmad at the Olympic Council of Asia did not respond to a request for comment.
The sheikh, who runs the Olympic Council of Asia, an umbrella group for Olympic committees created by his late father, has been identified as a co-conspirator in a US Department of Justice soccer corruption case in 2017. He subsequently resigned from FIFA’s ruling council and pledged to withdraw from soccer while the case was being litigated.
The Times said his continuing involvement shows how the most influential figures at the highest levels of international sport often find ways to maintain their grip on the levers of power even when they are not supposed to.