BEYOND THE FIELD. Out of order

This past May, FIFA, world football’s governing body, plunged into what looked like the worst crisis in its beleaguered history. The Swiss police made a series of arrests after the US Department of Justice announced the indictment of 14 people, nine of whom were current or former FIFA executives, on varying charges, which included racketeering, wire fraud and money-laundering conspiracies. Given the extent of the irregularities that have pervaded FIFA’s operations, especially since the Brazilian João Havelange assumed its presidency in 1974, the news of these arrests appeared to represent a watershed.

A month later, when FIFA’s embattled president Sepp Blatter — who succeeded Havelange in 1998 — announced that he would step down once a successor was elected the following year, it seemed like we had finally arrived at a game-changer, a perfect opportunity for reform. But more recent developments suggest that transformation at FIFA requires measures that go beyond the ouster of a few.

After Blatter announced his decision, the choice of his replacement appeared obvious to many.

Michel Platini, the former French footballing great and head of Europe’s governing body UEFA, enjoyed the backing of many federations. But in early October, Platini, along with Blatter, was suspended from FIFA for 90 days, pending enquiry. The alleged offence: an unauthorised payment of $2 million made by FIFA to Platini.

The suspension, unless lifted, bars Platini from contesting the presidential elections next year. Ordinarily, given the nature of the charges, you’d have thought: good riddance! After all, the latest allegations appeared to vindicate the former Manchester United legend Eric Cantona, who, only last year, described choosing between Platini and Blatter as akin to a choice between contracting the plague and catching cholera. But, bizarrely, it appears, it could get even worse for FIFA.

On Monday, Bahrain’s Sheikh Salman bin Ebrahim al-Khalifa, the head of the Asian Football Confederation, submitted his candidature to be the new president of FIFA. He had previously backed Platini to replace Blatter as president. The renewed allegations against Platini, though, have pushed Sheikh al-Khalifa into throwing his name into the veritable ring.

“A growing number of senior football administrators, FIFA members and personalities of public life,” Sheikh al-Khalifa said last week, had been urging him to run for the presidency. If it were indeed true that Sheikh al-Khalifa boasted such backing, and were he to come to power, FIFA, which is already mired in filth and greed, could take a potentially fatal step towards an irredeemable degeneration.

As a member of Bahrain’s royal family, according to several reports, Sheikh al-Khalifa has been at the forefront of thwarting democratic protest in Bahrain, by using the most insidious means, including torture and mass incarcerations. “In 2013, our organisation wrote to FIFA president, Mr Joseph Blatter, expressing our deep concern over allegations of unethical behaviour conducted by FIFA committee member and president of the Asian Football Confederation, Sheikh al-Khalifa,” a letter to FIFA from the Americans for Democracy & Human Rights in Bahrain said. “…As we explained in our previous communications, there is credible evidence that Sheikh al-Khalifa aided and abetted crimes against humanity while he was president of the [Bahrain Football Association]. In light of news that Sheikh al-Khalifa is seeking election as president of FIFA, we write now to urge you to terminate his candidacy for this position in the emergency meeting of the FIFA executive committee.”

In February 2011, Bahrain launched a violent attack against the nearly 6,000 protesters who had taken part in demonstrations across the country to demand political reforms, including the establishment of a democratic rule of law. In the aftermath of this repression, the Bahraini government established a special committee to identify the protesters, which included many athletes, before systematically overseeing a campaign of imprisonment, torture, and denial of medical treatment.

According to reports in The Guardian , a document on the Bahrain News Agency’s website recounts the specific involvement of Sheikh al-Khalifa, who was general secretary of youth and sport and head of the Bahrain Football Association at the time, in this committee.

Since 2011, when Sheikh al-Khalifa’s involvement in the crackdown first surfaced, FIFA has refused to investigate the allegations. According to the Bahrain Institute for Rights and Democracy, it had written in 2013 to the then chairman of the FIFA ethics committee, Michael Garcia that at least six footballers from the Bahrain national football team were arrested, defamed and tortured. Their identification and subsequent incarceration were, the organisation said, at the behest of Sheikh al-Khalifa.

Although there are other candidates in the fray, including UEFA’s general secretary Gianni Infantino, who will run with Europe’s backing, Sheikh al-Khalifa is likely to draw substantial support from South America, Africa, and his home continent Asia. In the absence of a sufficient backlash to his nomination, Sheikh al-Khalifa could be seen at the helm of FIFA.

As Nicholas McGeehan, a researcher at Human Rights Watch, put it: “If a member of Bahrain’s royal family is the cleanest pair of hands that FIFA can find, then the organisation would appear to have the shallowest and least ethical pool of talent in world sport.”

Suhrith Parthasarathy (@suhrith)is a Chennai-based lawyer and writer

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