Football: Figo's Fifa hopes set to wither in heat of African support for Blatter

Luis Figo. Photo / AP

"Something has to be done," declared Luis Figo, almost quoting Lenin, as he entered the suddenly widening race to become the next president of Fifa yesterday.

"Something has to be changed," he added. "Change in leadership, in governance, in transparency, in solidarity. Now is the time for that."

Except, unfortunately, it's not. For all the cries of a need for change, from British journalists, from Gary Lineker, from Dutch football administrators, from football fans and the like, the "football world" wants Fifa to stay the same and, barring unforeseen and extraordinary events between now and Fifa's congress in Zurich in May, it will do that.

Figo, a former World Footballer of the Year, who has served on the UEFA football committee, is an infinitely more serious proposition than publicity-seeking David Ginola, but it will make no difference. "To be president of Fifa you need to understand Africa," was the French Football Federation president Noel Le Graet's withering response to Ginola's stunt, and the same applies to Figo.

In fact, you don't even need to understand Africa, you just need to know Africa loves Fifa president Sepp Blatter and he cannot be defeated.

The commonly understood wisdom is that Blatter's popularity on the continent has been directly bought in dubious deals. The reality is more complicated. For the most part, Africa's love of Blatter is genuine and hardly surprising.

Those close to Fifa's longstanding president suggest that it was during his visit to Ethiopia in 1976, a year after joining Fifa as a technical officer, that he became determined to bring the World Cup to Africa, something he finally delivered in 2010.

During that tournament in South Africa, he pointedly stood up for the beleaguered vuvuzela. "I have always said that Africa has a different rhythm, a different sound," he said. "I don't see banning the music traditions of fans in their own country."

Fifa's surging revenues under his presidency, 2.5 billion ($5.1 billion) from last year's World Cup in Brazil, are spent more generously in Africa than anywhere else. The Goal projects, building football infrastructure in countries that need it, receive ample funds and there are hundreds, nowhere more than in Africa.

In 2013, Blatter stopped by in lowly Mauritania to visit a Fifa-funded project building TV production units, allowing the nation to televise football matches. Of course, Blatter knows only too well that Mauritania has one vote in Fifa's presidential election, just the same as England, Germany, Portugal, the Netherlands, or any other voice crying out for change. Mauritania, on the other hand, has already seen change, and likes it.

Regularly, Blatter talks of giving more places at the World Cup to Africa and Asia at the expense of Europe and South America. Europe, he knows, is lost to him politically. And for all South America's footballing power, it is a continent of 10 football-playing nations. Africa has 56 associations, Asia 41.

This time round Asia has its own candidate, in Prince Ali bin al-Hussein of Jordan. Yet even he will be seeking support chiefly from Europe for his challenge. Last year the Asian Football Confederation claimed it would be supporting Blatter "unanimously".

For all the scandal that continues to rock Fifa around the decision to host the 2022 World Cup in the searing desert heat in Qatar, it is worth remembering that the furore is now more than four years old. It is only new details that are emerging.

African and Asian football administrators do not care about the heat of Qatar. They care, for reasons fair or foul, about their own nations' football future.

Asked if he could beat Blatter, Figo replied: "No one is untouchable."

Untouchable? No. But unbeatable? Yes.

- Independent