KARACHI: The Pakistan delegation has indicated its support for the president of world’s football governing body Sepp Blatter.

And while almost the whole of Europe along with the US, Australia and a few South American countries cried for change at the FIFA helm, Mr Blatter won an unprecedented fifth, four-year term as the leader of world football thanks mainly to the support he enjoys in Asia and Africa.

Upon Blatter’s re-election, television pictures showed the Pakistan Football Federation (PFF) delegation — sitting at the front row at the FIFA congress in Zurich on Friday — of its president Faisal Saleh Hayat, secretary Col Ahmed Yar Khan Lodhi and vice-president Syed Khadim Ali Shah rising to their feet and applauding the Swiss whose election came after two days of controversy over FIFA.

Two days prior to the election, raids at a Zurich hotel saw seven FIFA delegates, including two of its vice-presidents, arrested by the FBI for racketeering, money laundering and kickbacks in marketing deals for tournaments in North, Central and South America.

On the same day, Swiss authorities opened probes into the awarding of the 2018 and the 2022 World Cups to Russia and Qatar. That investigation, however, was asked by FIFA itself.

Europe’s football governing body UEFA had vociferously demanded Blatter to resign as they said all that happened under his watch and were hoping that the controversy would help Blatter’s sole challenger, now former FIFA vice-president Prince Ali bin al-Hussein of Jordan to unseat him at the helm.

The PFF, however, remained unmoved like the majority of the other Asian Football Confederation (AFC) members. The FIFA election is a secret ballot but it is understood that the PFF gave its vote to Blatter. With 133 votes to Prince Ali’s 73, the elections went into a second round of voting before the Jordanian withdrew.

And on Saturday, a few hours after the AFC hailed Blatter’s re-election, the PFF did the same.

“This is a testimony to his outstanding and remarkable work of Mr Blatter as FIFA president,” Hayat said in a statement released on Friday. “The global football family has reposed its trust and confidence in Sepp Blatter once more. I, on behalf of the football community of Pakistan, congratulate Mr Blatter for convincingly winning the elections.”

It followed an earlier statement by the AFC president Shaikh Salman bin Ebrahim Al Khalifa on Blatter’s re-election.

“On behalf of myself, the AFC and the whole Asian football family, I would like to congratulate Joseph S. Blatter on his re-election as FIFA president,” it said.

“The AFC has always supported the FIFA President and we are happy to continue working with him and FIFA to further develop Asian and world football into the future.”

During his time as president, Blatter has given more power to Asian and African countries. Pakistan, football’s minnows, have one vote at the FIFA Congress, similar to what Germany, the world champions, have.

It seems to infuriate Europe and South America, the traditional strongholds of the game.

“This can’t go on,” Dutch football association CEO Bert van Oostveen said on Friday. “With all the respect to everyone that’s here today: it is always the small countries that create the majority. But it is countries like France, Germany, England, Spain, Portugal, Netherlands – and a lot more — that are making the global football big.

“They should have to take a blank sheet and create a new FIFA organisation with each other. I know that outside Europe, in America, Canada, Australia and a few countries in Asia, people think like this. There are no concrete plans. The only thing I can say is that this can’t go on. This system is rotten. We have to continue our protest.”

One reason why Blatter enjoys widespread support in Asia and Africa is because of the development projects he’s awarded to countries in the two continents. They are called Goal Projects, of which Pakistan has received eight – one of which, in Peshawar, has been cancelled.

The only one completed is the PFF headquarters in Lahore while the PFF hopes to have the other six fully operational by the end of this year. And with Blatter’s re-election, Hayat who himself will run for re-election as PFF chief in June, hoped for more development projects.

“As for the Asian region, for the betterment of the game, Sepp has been a blessing as he has given outright support to the developing football nations like Pakistan,” he added in his statement. “We hope that Mr Blatter will continue to extend all his support which will help Pakistan football federation to increase the pace of football development in the country.”

Published in Dawn, May 31st, 2015

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