Post by stellarboy on Jan 7, 2012 22:03:54 GMT 8
Fink: Time for the AFC to break apart
Thursday 5th January 2012
ESPNSTAR.com columnist Jesse Fink feels that there should be a change in the higher hierarchy of the Asian Football Confederation.
The fight for the control of the leaderless Asian Football Confederation is almost officially upon us.
While Mohamed bin Hammam, the incumbent but suspended president, won't be going to the Court of Arbitration of Sport until March to appeal his life ban by FIFA for his alleged bribery of Caribbean Football Union delegates in Port of Spain last May, the jockeying has already begun.
Shaikh Salman Bin Ibrahim Al Khalifa of Bahrain, Zhang Jilong of China, Yousuf Al Serkal of the United Arab Emirates, Japan's Kozo Tashima and Malaysia's Prince Abdullah Ibni Sultan Ahmad Shah are all considered to be candidates for succeeding the Qatari, who until his fall from grace had been in power for near a decade and led to the AFC to unprecedented financial bounty if not political stability.
The election of a new president, if it comes to that, will witness the usual scrap between east and west, two culturally antagonistic poles of an unwieldy, unworkable confederation. The marriage so far has been one of mutual convenience.
The Middle East has the money and a World Cup. The Far East has the market and teams good enough to qualify for the World Cup.
But no one's happy.
Peter Velappan, the former AFC general secretary and Bin Hammam's longtime bête noire, told India's Economic Times that with the uncertainty over the presidency "now it is time for regional rotation" of the position and it "should not last more than two terms and then go around the regions if they have candidates that are good enough".
I disagree.
Rotating the presidency is just lip service to an intractable cultural problem that has bedevilled the confederation for years.
Rather the leadership vacuum in the AFC and FIFA's ongoing fragility should be seized as an opportunity to do what should have been done years ago: accelerate plans to split the AFC into two and absorb the Oceania Football Confederation into an East Asian bloc.
It's a simple solution: the West Asian Football Federation and Central & South Asian Football Federation become "West Asia" and the East Asian Football Federation, ASEAN Football Federation and Oceania become "East Asia".
On current World Cup allocations (four and a half for Asia, a half for Oceania), that's five spots to split. But take away a spot from the shambolic CONCACAF, which scarcely deserves its current three and a half - let alone the four it's been haggling for - and you've got six.
I've previously been in favour of an equal split, but four for East and two for West is fair.
The East, which qualified four teams for South Africa 2010, gets to guarantee that number for perpetuity.
The West gets two more than it qualified for the last World Cup: which was a big fat zero.
Everyone wins - the Middle East, the Far East, New Zealand, the Pacific, even FIFA. Except, of course, for the Caribbean. But they never do anything at the World Cup but make up the numbers. With Jack Warner's demise hopefully its disproportionate influence in FIFA circles will be pegged back.
Time to pounce.
Most importantly, a split would see West and East take control of their own destinies without having to dilute what makes them culturally distinct.
And if it means the Asian Champions League gets scrapped, so be it. As it is, it's not working anyway. It's like the AFC itself: too big, lacking a cohesive identity and ultimately convincing no one.
The future of Asian football requires a leader with the vision and courage to make tough decisions. Not just another politician.
And dismantling Asia to begin again but get it right has to be the toughest but necessary decision of all.
www.espnstar.com/editorial/news/detail/item731013/Fink:-Time-for-the-AFC-to-break-apart/
Thursday 5th January 2012
ESPNSTAR.com columnist Jesse Fink feels that there should be a change in the higher hierarchy of the Asian Football Confederation.
The fight for the control of the leaderless Asian Football Confederation is almost officially upon us.
While Mohamed bin Hammam, the incumbent but suspended president, won't be going to the Court of Arbitration of Sport until March to appeal his life ban by FIFA for his alleged bribery of Caribbean Football Union delegates in Port of Spain last May, the jockeying has already begun.
Shaikh Salman Bin Ibrahim Al Khalifa of Bahrain, Zhang Jilong of China, Yousuf Al Serkal of the United Arab Emirates, Japan's Kozo Tashima and Malaysia's Prince Abdullah Ibni Sultan Ahmad Shah are all considered to be candidates for succeeding the Qatari, who until his fall from grace had been in power for near a decade and led to the AFC to unprecedented financial bounty if not political stability.
The election of a new president, if it comes to that, will witness the usual scrap between east and west, two culturally antagonistic poles of an unwieldy, unworkable confederation. The marriage so far has been one of mutual convenience.
The Middle East has the money and a World Cup. The Far East has the market and teams good enough to qualify for the World Cup.
But no one's happy.
Peter Velappan, the former AFC general secretary and Bin Hammam's longtime bête noire, told India's Economic Times that with the uncertainty over the presidency "now it is time for regional rotation" of the position and it "should not last more than two terms and then go around the regions if they have candidates that are good enough".
I disagree.
Rotating the presidency is just lip service to an intractable cultural problem that has bedevilled the confederation for years.
Rather the leadership vacuum in the AFC and FIFA's ongoing fragility should be seized as an opportunity to do what should have been done years ago: accelerate plans to split the AFC into two and absorb the Oceania Football Confederation into an East Asian bloc.
It's a simple solution: the West Asian Football Federation and Central & South Asian Football Federation become "West Asia" and the East Asian Football Federation, ASEAN Football Federation and Oceania become "East Asia".
On current World Cup allocations (four and a half for Asia, a half for Oceania), that's five spots to split. But take away a spot from the shambolic CONCACAF, which scarcely deserves its current three and a half - let alone the four it's been haggling for - and you've got six.
I've previously been in favour of an equal split, but four for East and two for West is fair.
The East, which qualified four teams for South Africa 2010, gets to guarantee that number for perpetuity.
The West gets two more than it qualified for the last World Cup: which was a big fat zero.
Everyone wins - the Middle East, the Far East, New Zealand, the Pacific, even FIFA. Except, of course, for the Caribbean. But they never do anything at the World Cup but make up the numbers. With Jack Warner's demise hopefully its disproportionate influence in FIFA circles will be pegged back.
Time to pounce.
Most importantly, a split would see West and East take control of their own destinies without having to dilute what makes them culturally distinct.
And if it means the Asian Champions League gets scrapped, so be it. As it is, it's not working anyway. It's like the AFC itself: too big, lacking a cohesive identity and ultimately convincing no one.
The future of Asian football requires a leader with the vision and courage to make tough decisions. Not just another politician.
And dismantling Asia to begin again but get it right has to be the toughest but necessary decision of all.
www.espnstar.com/editorial/news/detail/item731013/Fink:-Time-for-the-AFC-to-break-apart/