Sepp Blatter sent his legal team to ensure that the elections to the FIFA executive committee went off smoothly in one of the most bitter and acrimonious campaigns that pitted incumbent Mohammed Bin Hammam, AFC president from Qatar against Bahrain’s challenger Sheikh Salman bin Ebrahim Al-Khalifa.
Today, Bin Hammam retained his seat in a close vote 23-21 on his 60th birthday.
India, Australia, Indonesia, amongst others voted for the AFC president while South Korea, Japan, Malaysia, and the Gulf coast countries voted against him.
There is enormous amount of work to be done including the future of the AFC as the true representative of Asian football or whether it needs to be restructured into smaller, independent entities that manage regional aspirations much more effectively. There seems to be a groundswell of support for such a split.