Luis Figo trashes FIFA’s sham election process

The group of candidates opposing Sepp Blatter for the FIFA presidency is now down to one. Michael van Praag withdrew from the race on Wednesday and was followed the next day by Luis Figo, who issued a statement regarding the end of his candidacy. It’s pretty excellent.

First of all, A-plus usage of the word plebiscite. Figo’s high school history teacher is proud. Second, this is a pretty scathing attack on FIFA and Sepp Blatter, who hasn’t bothered to debate his opponents or submit a platform to the people doing the voting.

The only remaining candidate challenging Blatter is Prince Ali bin Al-Hussein, the president of the Jordanian Football Association and a Vice President of FIFA for the Asian Football Confederation. Theoretically, the withdrawals of Figo and van Praag should help Ali, since the anti-Blatter vote will no longer be splintered.

But no one expects a strong anti-Blatter vote on May 29 in Zurich. Despite all the criticism he receives from around the world for his overt sexism, overseeing of massive corruption, avoiding the FBI over said corruption and not caring that lots of people are dying while building him stadiums, he’s going to keep running the most powerful sports organization in the world.