TOKYO SEXWALE, THE South African FIFA presidential candidate, has published his manifesto — vowing to revamp the corruption-tainted organisation and grow football in India and China.
Sexwale, a politician and millionaire businessman who was jailed alongside Nelson Mandela under apartheid rule, is one of the five candidates cleared last week to be in the race to succeed Sepp Blatter.
He said the document released to the media was the foundation for a turn-around strategy, “to repair the damage done to the FIFA brand globally”.
In a bid to bolster the coffers of struggling football associations, Sexwale proposed, among other strategies, the sponsoring of national jerseys as happens in other sporting disciplines.
He proposes that national associations “seriously explore the possibility of having the national jersey… bearing the logo of the main sponsor — not only the jersey-maker as currently is the case.
“There is space there for much value worth millions of dollars which will be destined directly into FAs’ coffers.”
FIFA currently prohibits national shirt sponsorship, although clubs use it widely while Ireland replica jerseys sold to fans contain the logo of their main sponsor ’3′.
Sorry, we simply refuse to get behind such a proposal.