CONCACAF announced a few days ago that Jeffrey Webb, a banker and current president of the Cayman Islands FA, will be the only candidate for the CONCACAF presidency. The vote won't occur until CONCACAF's Extraordinary Congress in Budapest in late May, but given that Webb received endorsements from 25 of the 40 member associations, something significant would have to happen for him to lose support. (This article from Honduras sports daily Diez says that Webb received 29 endorsements.) Alfredo Hawit of Honduras is the acting CONCACAF president, but he knows math as well as any Central or North American in the confederation, and he has decided not to stand for election.
When the election process started, I said that the Caribbean nations will have a very strong say over who will become the next president, and in fact they have. The Caribbean Football Union has 30 members, 75% of the total membership of CONCACAF. If we only consider the English Caribbean members, there are 17. So the English Caribbean members, by themselves, can decide who the next CONCACAF president will be, and the remaining Caribbean associations will go along. (Who else are they going to follow, a Central American candidate who they don't relate to, or a North American who they'll never support?) I've read a couple of articles expressing surprise that Webb will be the next president, but why should there be? It is nothing more than the rule of the majority in CONCACAF.
The next executive office to be filled will be the general secretary. Given the way that power has been shared in the confederation in the past, I would not be surprised if a North American takes that seat.
I haven't seen any of the articles that are expressing surprise, but to my mind, I am a little surprised that it's Webb. Having followed Bill Archer's blog for some time, I was expecting the guy from Jamaica or another Warner crony to manage to grab the spot rather than one of the people that spoke out against Warner.
Maybe, just maybe, this is an indication that things are getting marginally less corrupt in CONCACAF.
Posted by: Eric Vormelker | April 04, 2012 at 10:47 AM