European Football Launches Search For Literally Anyone To Challenge Infantino
Officials say the hunt is progressing well, after three footballs, a stapler and an unusually determined pigeon entered the process.
BRUSSELS, European football leaders say they are confident a candidate will emerge to oppose Gianni Infantino in the upcoming FIFA presidential election. The search has therefore widened to include anyone willing to complete the form.
By Sam Sideways. It started in the usual places: committee rooms, hotel corridors and a cupboard labelled “miscellaneous leadership materials”. By Tuesday it had reached railway stations, garden centres and a bakery queue in Luxembourg, where a man holding a baguette was briefly assessed as a credible alternative.
A working group interviewed 14 footballs, six retired mascots and a photocopier that once produced an agenda with unusual confidence. The machine was ruled out after conceding that it only worked when somebody stood beside it and sighed.
“At present, the pen situation is more encouraging than the human situation.”
“We need courage, availability and at least one functioning pen,” said Mavis Quill, deputy coordinator of the European Candidate Retrieval Office. “The pen situation is presently stronger than the human situation.”
That has not stopped the office from widening its net. Questionnaires went to several objects thought to show leadership potential. A red corner flag returned its form with every box ticked. A revolving door applied on the basis that it has long experience of admitting people, removing them, and somehow retaining control of both arrangements.
The strongest application so far came from Clive, a pigeon whose manifesto arrived in breadcrumbs. The committee introduced him as senior external adviser for urban navigation. He promised to “fly in circles until everyone agrees”. His paperwork stalled at the ethics panel, which found that he had no email address, no passport and an alarming number of opinions about statues.
Office supplies are now making their own case. A coalition of unsorted items has said it will unionise unless one of its members receives consideration. Staplers want recognition. Paperclips are demanding a defined chain of command, while a yellow highlighter has threatened to mark every candidate “URGENT” until further notice. Their spokesperson, Lenard Staple, said the group was “tired of being treated as stationery when we are plainly a governing class”.
Officials expect the search to continue until they find somebody suitable, or the filing cabinet secures a working majority. They still expect the eventual candidate to be a living person. That is now an aspirational target rather than a procedural requirement.