THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
GENEVA — Sepp Blatter and Mohamed bin Hammam are set for a two-man showdown to become FIFA president after the nominations deadline passes at midnight.
Only Blatter, the 13-year incumbent, and Asian Football Confederation President bin Hammam have secured backers that are proving elusive to their would-be rivals from outside FIFA’s inner circle.
Elias Figueroa, a Chilean three-time South American Player of the Year, accepted defeat on Wednesday in trying to find the required one of FIFA’s 208 national members willing to write a formal proposal for his candidacy.
A fourth potential candidate, American sportswriter Grant Wahl, says he’s contacted 150 countries without winning support for his promise to open up world football’s governing body to greater transparency.
FIFA said Friday that its legal department in Zurich will confirm the list of official candidates on Monday after "a thorough verification process."
Wahl told The Associated Press he had "detailed talks" with about 20 countries and found football officials unwilling to risk funding and relationships with FIFA and their continental leaders by publicly backing an outsider.
"This fear of retribution is not only from Blatter, it’s from everybody on down the line in this regimented system," Wahl said in a telephone interview.
Transparency is set to be a major campaign theme after FIFA was rocked by allegations of corruption and hidden agendas during the process to elect Russia and Qatar last December as hosts of the World Cup in 2018 and 2022, respectively.
Blatter this week said he will present "something special" on the subject to FIFA members on the June 1 election day at their congress in Zurich. His new project would "fight corruption, all cheating and discrimination."
Seeking to extend his 13-year stint into a fourth and final four-year term, the 75-year-old Blatter was nominated by Somalia.
Blatter has declined to talk about the election, promising to make a statement after the nomination deadline passes.
Bin Hammam also has promised greater transparency and the sharing of FIFA’s centralized decision-making power with its six confederations.
The 61-year-old Qatari businessman, who played an important role in his native country’s 2022 triumph, was nominated by Yemen, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Thailand and said last week he would finance his own campaign.
Bin Hammam helped manage, and reportedly fund, Blatter’s election victories in 1998 and 2002, but the two former allies have since grown apart.
FIFA has had only eight presidents in 107 years, all from European families, and bin Hammam said this week his bid was "a journey for all of Asia."
"Once a son of Asia is in the leading post in FIFA, I believe it will open the door for all of our ambitions in Asia and other confederations to be achieved worldwide," he wrote on his website.
Bin Hammam has 15 years’ service on FIFA’s executive committee — which choses the World Cup hosts — and Wahl questioned whether the Asian leader offered a fresh start.
"In many ways he still does seem like a FIFA insider on the issue that is most important to the world’s fans — which right now is corruption and whether FIFA is a clean organization," Wahl said.
FIFA election rules require the winning candidate to get a two-thirds majority of valid votes cast in the first ballot, or a majority in the second. If there are more than two candidates, the one with the lowest total is eliminated after each voting round until a winner emerges.
Suspended FIFA members, a list that currently includes Bosnia-Herzegovina and Brunei, can’t attend or vote.