MIAMI: Larry Mussenden, one of the two front-runners for the presidency of CONCACAF, has said he is happy to see the power of senior executives reined in writes KEIR RADNEDGE.

Mussenden, president of the Bermuda FA and a senior member of the legal panel of world federation FIFA, is being challenged most directly by Victor Montagliani, head of the Canadian Soccer Association, as well as by Mark Rodrigues of Guyana and Gordon Derrick, the general secretary of the Antigua and Barbuda FA and president of Caribbean Football Union.

The central and north American confederation, at the centre of the FIFAGate scandal, is without a president after the arrest in Switzerland on a United States warrant of Honduran Alfredo Hawitt.

He was the third CONCACAF leader targeted by the US judicial authorities after Jack Warner (who is contesting extradition from Trinidad and Tobago) and Jeffrey Webb (on bail in the US). Significant evidence against them was provided by former CONCACAF general secretary Chuck Blazer.

Mussenden said: “There has to be governance, there can’t be a president and a general secretary running off on a frolic of their own, signing off on contracts that the executive council don’t know about.

Stability ambition

“If we put the right organisation and structure in place, and staff in place that can get on with doing their jobs … if the president changes in four years it won’t matter because the organisation will be stable.

“Policies might change but organisation itself will remain sound, not falling to the whim of a president or general secretary.

“I don’t think anything I have said is eye-catching, it’s pure football, it’s about what the realities of what we have to do.

“CONCACAF right now is in a difficult situation, we need a candidate who is going to bring us out of that position and help to restore our credibility in the eyes of the world.”

A first test will come in June when CONCACAF hosts in the US the South American Championship centenary tournament.

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