The election will consist of votes from 209 FIFA members and the winner will require a majority of 105 votes. Let’s look at how those votes are divided amongst the six football confederations across the globe.
The biggest controlling stakes lies in Africa where 54 votes are up for grabs. It’s an area that Blatter has in the past, faced huge opposition, but now it looks as if the Confederation of African Football, CAF, will give their backing to the Swiss. The Confederation of African Football issued a statement on Thursday opposing calls for the election to be delayed and reiterating its intention to vote for Blatter. It also offered “our full support to the measures initiated by Fifa in recent years in improving good governance”.
Asia have 47 members, will most likely go the same way, although there is some who are leaning towards Prince Ali Al Bin Hussein. Oceania looks as if it is a foregone conclusion with all 11 nations signing a letter of support to the current FIFA boss. It’s difficult to predict where the 10 votes in South America will go with the region having a pro Blatter past that has wavered in recent years. Prince Ali can almost expect unanimous support from Europe where the largest contingent against the current regime lies, Europe is second largest with 53 votes. North and Central America is probably the swing region with 35 votes.
