Asian football is not in "crisis" and is running smoothly despite corruption allegations which have left its leader suspended from the sport, a senior official said Tuesday. Asian Football Confederation (AFC) general secretary Alex Soosay said there were no plans for an extraordinary regional congress, stressing president Mohamed bin Hammam's ban was only "provisional".
"There is no insecurity, we are very stable. There are no issues of crisis as such," Soosay told AFP, on the sidelines of the AFC Champions League final stages draw in Kuala Lumpur. "The administration is functioning very efficiently." Asian soccer was shaken by last week's dramatic FIFA congress in Zurich when bin Hammam was accused of vote-buying in his failed attempt to topple the world body's long-time leader, Sepp Blatter.
Soosay's comments echo those of Blatter, who in a much-criticised speech last week shrugged off corruption allegations engulfing football's governing body and denied the sport is in crisis. Bin Hammam has been suspended pending an investigation. But Soosay said his stand-in, senior vice-president Zhang Jilong of China, would visit the AFC's Kuala Lumpur headquarters soon to take up his duties.
"The daily acts are running smoothly and professionally," Soosay said. "The acting president will take office. By next week he will be here," he added. "He is a very experienced man, we can rely on him. He has been an AFC vice-president since 1997."
Soosay said he had not received complaints from AFC member countries and said there was "no need... for the moment" to hold an extraordinary congress, which could decide to vote for a new president. "I don't think there is any (unhappiness from members) at the moment, everything's stable," he said.
Asian football is also battling a number of problems including FIFA's suspension of Indonesia's membership for failing to halt a rebel league, and a South Korean match-fixing scandal which prompted one player's apparent suicide. Many clubs in Australia's A-League are struggling financially while FIFA is targeting Malaysia and Singapore as the source of match-fixing scandals in wealthy European leagues.