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 That is when he will have to sit back and listen to the three men
challenging his right to remain FIFA president, with each being
allowed 15 minutes to score, as it were, a goal that would send him
crashing to defeat.
Michael van Praag, 68, the Dutch FA president, Luis Figo, 42, of
Portugal, a former World Player of the Year, and Prince Ali Bin Al
Hussein, 39, the outgoing vice-president of the Asian Football
Confederation, are lining up against him.
Unless any of them decide to pull out beforehand, all three will
address delegates from FIFA's 209 member associations when they
assemble at Zurich's Hallenstadion on May 29, with Blatter then
offered the floor to defend his position.
Unless the majority of the traditionally conservative and fiercely
loyal Blatter supporters have a totally unexpected change of heart,
he will be presented with the winner's bouquet once the votes cast
in the secret ballot have been counted.
However, the 79-year-old Swiss, who has been president since 1998
and seen off opponents before, may not get quite the runaway victory
he seeks.
For the first time since 1961, when Stanley Rous of England beat two
rivals to win the presidency, the names of more than two men will be
on the ballot paper.
While Van Praag, Figo and Prince Ali are unlikely to unseat Blatter,
their presence and the fact they might muster enough votes to send
the contest into a second round, would show that not everyone is
happy with FIFA, or the way Blatter runs an organization with more
members than the United Nations.
SAME MESSAGE
The campaign for the leadership began in January last year when
former FIFA deputy secretary general Jerome Champagne of France
launched his bid in London.
Although his challenge subsequently collapsed a year later when he
could not secure the required letters of support from five member
nations, his basic message is one shared by the three who are still
standing.
"FIFA needs to change, it needs to be modernized and better reflect
the game in the 21st century and the time has come for Sepp Blatter
to be replaced," Champagne repeated, and there is likely to be some
support for that idea.
All three men have the broad backing of UEFA, the European
confederation, and will gain votes from European countries while Van
Praag is likely to be backed by some former Dutch colonies.
Figo, hugely admired as a player but a lightweight in this contest,
could be backed by some Portuguese-speaking countries, while Prince
Ali should gain the support of his own west Asian region, some north
African countries and the United States, but not the whole of Asia
where most countries are backing Blatter.
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BACKING BLATTER
In fact most of FIFA's members will support Blatter.
This is largely because they feel they can trust him to help them
run their associations through the Goal Programme and development
fund money which helps subsidise every association whether rich or
poor.
Also most of the people who rise to positions of power in football
are very resistant to any change.
That is best illustrated by the fact that Figo, Van Praag and Prince
Ali were refused permission to speak to delegates at the Asian,
African, South American and CONCACAF Congresses in the build-up to
the main event.
UEFA allowed all three to address their delegates while Blatter
refused the offer to speak as a "candidate", only as the FIFA
president, and did so at every congress he attended.
So sure is Blatter of another victory that the president, unlike the
others, has not issued a manifesto but is prepared to let his record
speak for itself.
The fact his record is blemished by a series of crises during the
past 17 years -- culminating in widespread allegations of corruption
in the way FIFA's executive committee voted Russia as hosts of the
2018 World Cup and Qatar for 2022, plus the shelving of attorney
Michael Garcia's report into those allegations - is unlikely to
count against him.
Instead, Blatter will speak, as he often does, of a unified FIFA,
which now has reserves of $1.5bn in the bank and where respect,
discipline and reform have helped steer the ship back into the safe,
calm waters of a peaceful harbor.
Unless of course, he concedes an own goal with a minute to go.
(Reporting by Mike Collett; Editing by Douglas Beattie)
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