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 There were no gilt thrones to hand, nor velvet curtains hanging
heavy. Instead, a small group of around 50 men – the men who will
help elect the next FIFA president - settled down in rows of cheap
seating.
This was global soccer politics, austerity style.
With FIFA having suspended payments to CONCACAF, the governing body
for soccer in North and Central America and the Caribbean, the
delegates accustomed to a five-star life made do with meal vouchers
and glasses of water in the lobby.
The champagne-fueled days of life under former president Jeffrey
Webb of the Cayman Islands, now facing charges of fraud, money
laundering and racketeering conspiracy in the United States, must
have seemed very far off.
Certainly, this extremely rare glimpse of life at the heart of
soccer politics was an eye-opener. Not, though, for the reasons the
select few journalists admitted to the normally sacrosanct chamber,
had anticipated.
For decades, journalists have been locked out of the gatherings of
FIFA - global soccer's governing body brought to its knees by
corruption.
A total of 41 individuals and entities, including many former FIFA
officials, have been charged with corruption-related offences in the
United States. FIFA also faces a parallel Swiss investigation.
Its president Sepp Blatter was banned from soccer for eight years in
December for ethics violations over a $2 million payment FIFA made
to European soccer boss Michel Platini in 2011. Blatter, who says he
has done nothing wrong, is appealing the ban.
Its last general secretary, second in seniority only to Blatter, was
banned for 12 years on Friday for misconduct over the sale of World
Cup tickets, abuse of travel expenses, attempting to sell TV rights
below their market value and destruction of evidence.
Big sums, big stakes, big personalities.
You might expect gatherings of the kingmakers of the world's richest
sport to be high-octane affairs.
And with America enthralled by the entertaining spectacle of a real
presidential election campaign, it was impossible not to wonder if
there might not be some of the same fireworks in Miami.
But Gianni Infantino is not Bernie Sanders and Sheikh Salman Bin
Ebrahim Al Khalifa is certainly no Donald Trump.
The first sign that this meeting of four of the five candidates for
president might not be a drama of rhetoric, accusation and
counter-accusation, came when Sheikh Salman took the podium behind
that familiar foe of discourse -- the powerpoint presentation.
CHAMPAGNE OUTSIDER
Sheikh Salman had been mistakenly introduced by a CONCACAF official
as "The Crown Prince of Bahrain" but this was certainly more of an
audience with the Sheikh than a debate.
Salman, like all the candidates, has been jetting around the world
meeting voters, and he appeared tired as he read a dry, monotone
speech.
But FIFA elections aren't won on public speaking skills -- if they
were Frenchman Jerome Champagne would be favorite and not the
outsider.
A former French diplomat, Champagne showed he had certainly absorbed
plenty during his studies in the late 1970's at the elite Institute
for Political Studies in Paris.
He hit his favored theme - addressing the imbalances in soccer
between rich and poor clubs and nations - early and hard but,
speaking fluently without a script, he also offered some lines
straight out of the playbook of 'real politics'.
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"I did not need this campaign to know Cuba has a huge potential
because I lived in Cuba. I didn't need this campaign to realize that
the United States is and will be one of the strongest countries in
world soccer because I lived in the United States in 1994," he said,
with U.S Soccer president Sunil Gulati and Cuban FA chief Luis
Hernandez in the audience soaking up every word.
If Champagne offered worldly experience and egalatarian vision,
Infantino brought things back to the more familiar terrain of FIFA
politics - money.
"FIFA'S LAST CHANCE"
Infantino offered a massive boost in resources paid out from Zurich
to the federations declaring "It is your money, FIFA's money is your
money, the national associations' money" and promising that jobs in
Zurich would be given to people from the region.
"Your people will be in the FIFA administration," he said.
There may have been echoes in those promises of Blatter's tried and
tested electoral strategy but it was a well-delivered punchy message
that will likely have done no harm to the shaven-headed Infantino,
who has already won the backing of the seven Central American
countries.
Prince Ali Bin Al Hussein of Jordan played to a different sentiment,
assuring the audience their confederation were not to blame for
FIFA's crisis and were in fact "victims".
That raised some eyebrows, given the last three CONCACAF presidents
have been indicted on various corruption charges by the U.S.
Department of Justice, but before the delegates could feel too
comfortable in their new-found victim status, Ali had veered
dramatically to a doomsday scenario.
The election was "FIFA's last chance" he said, and the organization
could be wiped out if they chose, on February 26, the wrong man to
lead them.
But just as the evening came to life with that apocalyptic prospect,
it was all over and delegates shuffled off to the lobby and the bar.
There was a little fare for the conspiracy theorists as Champagne
sat locked deep in intense conversation with Prince Ali on the first
floor lobby while downstairs Sheikh Salman and Infantino, once
rumored to have cut a deal for this vote, relaxed in each other's
company.
All very collegiate then but with several former colleagues awaiting
trial, the corruption scandal is never far away from the minds of
soccer officials in the region.
As if to underline that, but by pure coincidence, earlier in the
day, U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch, who has fronted the FIFA
probe, was just a few miles away meeting with a Miami police
department.
(Reporting By Simon Evans; editing by Ossian Shine and Ralph
Boulton)
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