The campaign to remove Gianni Infantino from the Fifa presidency had a strange weekend. The man most often named as his replacement ruled himself out, and the man he is trying to replace spent it in a Caribbean resort doing exactly the kind of politics that got him this far.
Aleksander Ceferin, who has led Uefa's opposition to the Fifa Forward Enterprise scheme since it emerged last month, confirmed in a podcast interview that he will not stand at the Fifa Congress in March. "I'm not interested because of two reasons," he said. "One reason is that I love Uefa and I love working here, and I think that at a certain point, it's time to also enjoy life a bit." The second reason was the more pointed one. "My credibility is much, much higher if I'm not interested in the position."
That is a calculated position rather than a retreat. Ceferin's authority over the past month has rested on the claim that Uefa's objection to selling stakes in Fifa's competitions to private investors was a matter of principle, not ambition. Standing for the job would have handed Infantino's camp the argument it has been reaching for. Ceferin is instead expected to run unopposed for a fourth Uefa term when that election comes round next April.
The other theory of the contest