Blatter to fly to Qatar to head off Bin Hammam challenge

By Andrew Warshaw

April 23 – FIFA President Sepp Blatter (pictured) is stepping up his campaign to stand alone next year for an unprecedented fourth term.

Blatter is flying to Qatar in an attempt to persuade Asia’s top administrator, Mohamed Bin Hammam, not to challenge him for one of the most powerful roles in world sport.

The pair were due to meet last week but had to postpone the summit due to the Icelandic volcano that grounded flights worldwide.

Bin Hammam has gone on record as saying that more than two terms of office is too long for the Presidency but Blatter will have already served three by the time he is up for re-election in June 2011.

His decision to meet Bin Hammam face to face in his own backyard smacks of serious concern that re-election may not be the formality Blatter once thought.

“The President is a man who doesn’t like to have problems,” Walter Gagg, a leading FIFA official, told Bloomberg.

Earlier this year Bin Hammam said “the time has come” for an Asian to lead FIFA.

Although he had to fight a fierce political battle to remain head of the Asian Football Confederation (AFC), he remains a potentially dangerous adversary for the top job.

Meanwhile, Blatter took the unusual step of criticising African teams for changing coaches in the run-up to the World Cup.

Blatter has consistently stood by South Africa as host nation in the wake of fears over crime and lack of infrastructure but predicted a bleak World Cup for Bafana Bafana unless they improve dramatically.

“The talent of African players is at least as great as that of players from other countries, including Brazil and the Americas,” Blatter told a news conference on Friday.

“What is missing is tactics.

“How can they have this if they change the coach just a few months before the start of the biggest competition in the world?

“This continuity is missing.”

Three of Africa’s five World Cup representatives have recently swapped coaches.

Ivory Coast appointed former England and Mexico manager Sven-Goran Eriksson at the end of last month, having one month earlier fired Bosnian Vahid Halilhodzic.

Nigeria appointed Swede Lars Lagerback to replace Shaibo Amodu in February while South Africa brought back Carlos Alberto Parreira last October after firing fellow Brazilian Joel Santana.

FIFA secretary general Jerome Valcke, who is responsible for overseeing the tournament, insists none of the 300,000 remaining tickets for the World Cup will be given away.

But he acknowledged that “we have to work on our ticketing” after organisers were forced to cut prices to encourage South Africans.

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