Blatter Backer Wins Election
The Confederation of North and Central American and Caribbean Assn. Football (CONCACAF), soccer’s governing body in this region, apparently has cast its lot with Sepp Blatter in his bid to be reelected FIFA president.
That much was clear when the organization, whipped on by Americans Alan Rothenberg, a CONCACAF vice president, and Chuck Blazer, CONCACAF’s general secretary, voted, 36-2, to reelect Jack Warner, 59, of Trinidad and Tobago as its president for a fourth four-year term.
Warner, like Rothenberg and Blazer, is a staunch supporter of Blatter, who is being challenged in the May 29 FIFA election by Cameroon’s Issa Hayatou, president of the Confederation of African Football (CAF). Warner initially was running unopposed because CONCACAF refused to allow Edgardo Codesal of Mexico to stand for election because he is a CONCACAF employee.
That rule were suspended when CONCACAF’s annual congress was held in Miami on Saturday, but Codesal, referee of the 1990 World Cup final in Rome between Germany and Argentina, received votes only from Mexico and El Salvador.
Blatter was in Miami to shore up his support after seeing it erode worldwide amid allegations that FIFA’s finances are in disarray.
Europe
Mehmet Scholl, a Bayern Munich and Germany midfielder, is considering not going to the World Cup because he does not believe he is fit.
“I will talk to [Germany Coach] Rudi Voeller [this] week and will then announce my decision,” said Scholl, who has been sidelined because of assorted injuries this season but is one of the national team’s most creative players.
Franz Beckenbauer, Germany’s former World Cup-winning captain and coach and chairman of Bayern Munich, said it is important for Scholl to take part in Korea/Japan ‘02, after being a late cut from the 1994 and 1998 World Cup teams.
“If you want to be a great player, you have to take part in the World Cup at least once,” Beckenbauer said in an interview with Bild, the country’s largest-circulation daily newspaper. “If Rudi wants me to, I will talk to Mehmet. His participation is extremely important for German football.”
*
Celtic already has won the Scottish Premier League championship this season, but its Glasgow rival, Rangers, denied it the chance to enter the record books for winning every league home match this season when the teams played to a 1-1 tie Sunday. Celtic had won its previous 18 home games.
*
Photographers boycotted Real Madrid’s Spanish league match at Santiago Bernabeu Stadium on Saturday, complaining of mistreatment by Ultra Sur, the club’s radical fan group. “Whenever we pass in front of them, they spit at us, hurl objects and insult us,” one photographer told Reuters.
South America
Brazil’s Congress is debating a bill, originally proposed by Pele when he was the country’s Minister for Sport and signed last week by President Fernando Henrique Cardoso, that would require soccer teams to become companies subject to laws regulating all businesses.
Brazilian teams have been treated as private clubs and have not operated under the same laws public companies must obey. A recent government probe exposed widespread corruption in the Brazilian game on the league and federation level.
Asia
Saudi Prince Sultan bin Fahd bin Abdul Aziz, president of the Arab Football Federation, has written to FIFA and the International Olympic Committee asking that Israel be banned from international competition.
The letter, copies of which also were sent to the Assn. of National Olympic Committees and the Union of European Football Assns., was supported by the national soccer federations of Egypt, Jordan, Libya, Syria, Yemen and the United Arab Emirates.
According to Walid Kurdy, deputy secretary-general of the Arab Football Federation, the letter was partly motivated by the deaths of Palestinian athletes during Israel’s military offensive in the West Bank.
Kurdy said the longtime suspension of South Africa for its “racist policies” was precedent for such a move.
*
Jubilo Iwata and Japan national team striker Naohiro Takahara might miss the World Cup because of a blood clot blocking an artery in his left lung. The clot was discovered last week when Takahara, who has scored nine goals in 16 games for Japan, was being treated for pneumonia.
