Yum. Tasty, tasty!
Chung Mong-Joon, honorary vice president of FIFA and former chief of the South Korean football federation is also the controlling shareholder of the giant Hyundai Corporation, worth $1.2 billion. He’s also a member of his country’s national assembly. Thus, he wears many hats as administrator, businessman, and politician. Well, he’s thrown in his hat into the FIFA presidential elections and straight off the bat was critical of the present incumbent, Sepp Blatter and the man who could be anointed his successor, Michel Platini, the UEFA president.
His description of Sepp Blatter is particularly vivid: “like a cannibal eating his parents and then crying like he’s an orphan” referring to Blatter’s insistence he has nothing to do with the corruption presently embroiling FIFA which has seen many of his trusted lieutenants either arrested, charged, or facing extradition. Michel Platini is dismissed as a placeholder. “Mr Platini enjoys institutional support from the current structure of Fifa. Mr Platini is very much a product of the current system.”
He offers a taste of what his presidency would be like:
“If I get elected, my job is not to enjoy the luxury of the office. My job is to change it … it is time that Fifa had a non-European leadership. Fifa became a closed organisation for President Blatter, his associates and his cronies and I want to change that.”
Mong-Joon says his presidency would be term limited to four years. Which is exactly what FIFA requires to stop their presidents behaving like despots addled on money and power. The problem is he may not have the conference votes as Platini seems to be the consensus candidate but at least he could be the insurgent shaking up the election as a sort of people’s referendum on this tarnished institution.