Is the sport of football heading in the right direction now that the Swiss-Italian Gianni Infantino has been elected Fifa president? The fear that Fifa may have chosen once again from its own kind of sports administrators who brought such disrepute to football cannot be brushed aside.
As interim head, the polyglot who knows the same five languages as the displaced Sepp Blatter and who was Michel Platini’s aide at UEFA for 15 years, seven years as general secretary, was able to take the federation away from the eye of the storm over the scandals. But, as he threw his hat in the ring just before the deadline, he may have had to offer the same blandishments candidates have been known to use to get elected. In his campaign, Infantino offered several incentives to voting countries, including $1 million every four years for administrators’ travel.
On the face of it, though, Infantino seems a far more suitable candidate than Sheikh Salman bin Ebrahim al-Khalifa who, coming from an autocratic Bahrain family accused of human rights violations, is of a not so democratic mould. It is possible to see more than a glimmer of hope in a football technocrat taking over.
To steer Fifa away from its power politics and give the game primacy are priorities the new office-bearers must embrace if the federation is to get over the Blatter-Platini era. The “beautiful game” has had reforms thrust upon it, but that is the norm these days in all sports federations.
