International trade unions have expressed severe concerns over the possibility of Sheikh Salman al-Khalifa standing for the Fifa presidency due to his alleged links with the 2011 crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrators in Bahrain.
The International Trade Union Congress said it was inconceivable and not credible that Sheikh Salman, the Asian Football Confederation president, could fill the void created by Sepp Blatter’s decision to stand down amid an unprecedented crisis at Fifa.
Meanwhile, the union that represents football players around the world, Fifpro, has also intervened in the crisis-riddled Fifa presidential race by calling for “democratic values” and “human rights” to be a key factor.
Sheikh Salman has been accused of sitting on a committee that identified 150 athletes who took part in pro-democracy protests in his native Bahrain in 2011 and were later imprisoned and, in some cases, tortured. He has denied the allegations.
“It’s difficult to know how low Fifa politics can actually go,” said Sharan Burrow, the ITUC general secretary, who has been a consistent critic of the 2022 World Cup host, Qatar, over the conditions endured by migrant construction workers. “Football’s governing body refused to investigate the allegations against Sheikh Salman in 2011 and it is inconceivable that someone who is facing such grave allegations of human rights violations could step into the void at the top of Fifa resulting from Swiss and US corruption investigations.
“There are still trade unionists in prison in Bahrain, and freedom of association is still under attack.”
Last week the Guardian revealed that the Bahrain Institute for Rights and Democracy (BIRD) had called on Fifa’s ethics committee to investigate the matter in 2014 but Michael Garcia, then the head of its investigatory arm, said it was not within its remit.
In the letter, BIRD claimed that “at least six footballers from the Bahrain national football team were arrested, defamed and tortured following their public identification and humiliation by authorities”.
Sayed Ahmed Alwadaei, the director of advocacy at BIRD, said: “BIRD strongly backs and welcomes the action taken by ITUC. If Fifa is serious about reforms, it must now take serious steps to investigate Sheikh Salman for complicity in crimes against Bahraini footballers and other athletes rather than pave way for his incomprehensible and absurd appointment as president.”
Fifpro obliquely criticised Sheikh Salman in a statement outlining the characteristics it believes the job requires. “A new Fifa president would also need to show a body of work based on social wellbeing, fairness, democratic values and human rights,” it said. “If the candidate in question has not demonstrated these qualities in previous roles, he (or she, even though no female candidates have emerged) should be eliminated from the process without further delay.”
Sheikh Salman has yet to announce that he will stand but speculation that he was poised to do so increased after Michel Platini was suspended over allegations that the Uefa president accepted a £1.35m “disloyal payment” from the outgoing Fifa president, Sepp Blatter.
His fellow Fifa executive committee member Sheikh Ahmad al-Fahad al-Sabah, the Kuwaiti who is a former Blatter loyalist and the key power broker in the region, said this week that he believed Salman would start with the same base of more than 100 votes that Platini previously commanded.
Potential candidates have until close of business on Monday to submit their applications, accompanied by nominations from five of Fifa’s 209 members. Platini has already submitted his candidature but no decision will be made on whether he can stand until his suspension is over or lifted.
Prince Ali bin al-Hussein of Jordan and the former Trinidad & Tobago player David Nakhid are among the other declared candidates. A former Blatter adviser, the French former diplomat Jérôme Champagne, has also submitted the five required nominations and published a detailed manifesto. The South African Tokyo Sexwale is weighing up whether to enter the race.