Mohamed bin Hammam is prepared to strike a deal with UEFA leader Michel Platini for European support to help him oust Sepp Blatter as FIFA president.
Bin Hammam, the Asian Football Confederation President, likely needs strong backing from Europe’s 53 football nations to help end Blatter’s 13-year reign.
The Qatari challenger hinted at his strategic options when asked by reporters if he might address Platini’s own ambitions to be FIFA president in 2015 by agreeing to serve just a single four-year term in football’s most powerful job.
“I am not going to lie to you and say that I am not going to talk to Michel about possible cooperation in the future, this has to be put frankly,” bin Hammam said. “I’m not telling you I am not going to do it, but let’s wait and see.”
Bin Hammam is attending Tuesday’s UEFA Congress to lobby European federation presidents for their vote on June 1 in Zurich.
The two-day gathering of world football powerbrokers in Paris is bin Hammam’s first opportunity to build on his declaration last Friday to challenge Blatter, his former ally who also is attending and will make a speech on Tuesday.
Bin Hammam has promised greater transparency, sharing FIFA’s centralised decision-making power with its six confederations and doubling annual grants for its 208 national members to $500,000.
He assured FIFA of its first election contest for nine years, after Blatter was returned unopposed in 2007.
Bin Hammam said he did not regret campaigning for Blatter’s two election victories but “now things are different” for the 75-year-old Swiss official, who joined FIFA 36 years ago.
“When Mr Blatter first stood for election in 1998 he asked for two mandates, for eight years, which is very well recorded,” said bin Hammam. “There’s no guarantee that if Blatter wins another term it will be his last four years.”
Bin Hammam said, at age 61, his time had come to contribute more to FIFA and world football.
“If we’re not given the chance today, then when?” Bin Hammam asked. “Mr Platini is maybe opposing me as he has the ambition to be president in 2015, but I have the ambition to be president in 2011.
“If we don’t get our chance today when will we get our chance?”
Support from North, Central America and the Caribbean is also thought crucial to victory.
Bin Hammam said he will visit CONCACAF president Jack Warner and its executive committee next month to open talks over its 37-vote bloc.
He acknowledged facing opposition in some parts of the Asian confederation, which he has led for nine years and represented on the FIFA executive committee since 1996.
“I don’t have the support of everyone in Asia yet, but have to work for it,” said bin Hammam, revealing that the federations of Yemen, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Thailand nominated him to take on Blatter.
A wealthy businessman with construction and other interests in Qatar, bin Hammam said he would fund his own campaign expenses.
Bin Hammam then outlined “my vision and my goal” to rehabilitate FIFA’s reputation, after allegations of corruption on Blatter’s watch including during the bidding contest for the 2022 World Cup won by Qatar.
“I think Qatar played the game according to the rules and the regulations,” bin Hammam said. “I never saw FIFA as a corrupt organisation but maybe the lack of transparency, this is what people are attacking us for.
“At the end of the day we are an organisation that belongs to the public, it doesn’t belong to us. We have to make ourselves very clear to people.”
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