World football is preparing for its own real-life version of House of Cards. There are four months to go before Fifa will hold its emergency presidential elections and if House of Cards is anything to go by, we’re in for a heck of a ride. We’ve already had a foretaste. A little over a month ago, Frenchman Michel Platini was the firm favourite to take over from his old ally Sepp Blatter.

Now Platini, like almost every other person in a top Fifa job, is under criminal investigation for dodgy dealings. That Platini was one of the favourites, despite his closeness to Blatter and the question marks over the voting for the 2022 World Cup in Qatar sheds some light on the cacophony of crazy that is football’s world governing body.

Despite being suspended by Fifa for 90 days, Platini remains a candidate – on paper anyway – for the election. While the honourable thing would be for Platini to put his ego in the rubbish bin and step aside, Fifa has never been an organisation for men with modesty.

If members were serious about change, they would demand that the regulation introduced by Blatter that presidential candidates must have been involved in football for two of the last five years be stripped away so that a truly independent, external candidate could stand for election. But in the world’s biggest sport, integrity is seemingly non-existent and Platini will be allowed to stand if his suspension ends before the election date – which it will, even if an additional 45 days are added to the first 90. Platini just won’t be allowed to campaign.

But Platini is hardly the benchmark. Bahrain’s Sheikh Salman bin Ebrahim al-Khalifa is also on the campaign trail. He does not face any allegations of corruption within the game, but he does face allegations of human rights violations. In 2011, athletes took part in a pro-democracy demonstration and the sheikh had some of these protesters imprisoned. Footballer Ala’a Hubail, who was top-scorer at the 2004 Asian Cup, went so far as to say athletes were tortured before being released without charge.

Salman denies these allegations and nobody could prove torture did indeed take place.

“I cannot deny something that I haven’t done,” he told BBC Sport. “Such accusations are not just damaging, it’s really hurting. Some people have an agenda on their table. It’s not just damaging me, it’s damaging the people and the country. These are false, nasty lies that have been repeated again and again in the past and the present.”

Since then, he has taken over as the man in charge of the Asian Football Federation (AFC), with Blatter’s backing, of course. What he is likely to bring to the Fifa table nobody knows yet, but his tenure at the Asian Football Federation has seen him tackle match-fixing, grassroots development and increasing the number of women players. In September this year, the AFC became the first confederation to hold a women’s futsal championship, which was won by Iran.

The tussle for the prize of presiding over all of world football is filled with intriguing twists. None more so than the rivalry between Salman and fellow candidate Prince Ali bin al-Hussein of Jordan, a former backer. The relationship between these two went slightly awry when the sheikh won the leadership of Asia football, and earlier this year the Bahraini told Asian voters to back Blatter instead of Ali. If Platini cannot run, then the sheikh is likely to win the backing of Asia and most of Europe which leaves just Africa to conquer.

But Africa has two candidates of its own. South Africa’s Tokyo Sexwale and Liberia’s Musa Bility. Sexwale also has a close relationship with Blatter and insisted in an interview with the BBC on Monday that he will “shake things up”.

“I am going into this campaign as a candidate of my country with the confidence bestowed in me to make sure that we win,” Sexwale said.

“But win or lose, people will know there was an African who shook things up. I think it was a vote of confidence by people who I can only say understand who I am and what I will be able to bring to football,” he added. “Fifa, the organisation of the beautiful game, is damaged. The brand is severely undermined.”

Sexwale is far more likely than Bility to win backing from the African bloc, but the South African business tycoon could potentially come under scrutiny himself as the investigation from the US justice department drags on. South Africa’s World Cup Organising committee, of which Sexwale was part, is under scrutiny for an allegedly illicit payment of $10-million and although nobody has been named in the investigation yet, Sexwale might yet be called as a witness. Still, he has plenty of charisma and politicking know-how with which to win friends and influence people.

Bility isn’t exactly one of the African bloc’s favourite characters. When he tried to stand for the presidency before, the Confederation of African Football (CAF) gave him a friendly ‘no’ when he went looking for the five written nominations he needed to stand.

They also banned him from footballing activities in 2013 for daring to challenging CAF and its dictator president, Issa Hayatou. Bility tried to challenge the rule changes to the process that effectively allowed Hayatou to stay in charge for another term after first taking power in 1989.

The other candidates are somewhat unremarkable. Gianni Infantino has been ushered in as a smokescreen for Europe, as there were some concerns about backing the sheikh. With Platini out of the picture for the time being, they needed a horse. While Infantino is a savvy and diplomatic candidate, he’s unlikely to be more than a pawn in football’s grand play.

Former French diplomat Jérôme Champagne was one of Blatter’s right-hand men for 11 years before being muscled out by Platini. The European candidates are unlikely to have any real impact on the vote.

That leaves just David Nakhid left to challenge the three (or four if Platini re-emerges) most likely candidates. Nakhid captained Trinidad and Tobago, but remains a largely mysterious candidate. He has played football and has run a number of his own academies and was a staunch opponent of the now disgraced Jack Warner. Nakhid was blacklisted by Warner on a number of occasions because he advocated the rights of players who were inadequately paid.

All of the candidates will need to pass integrity checks before they can stand and before the challenge can begin in earnest. If the last few months are anything to go by, we’re in for quite a ride. DM

Photo: FIFA president Joseph ‘Sepp’ Blatter reacts while banknotes thrown by British Comedian Simon Brockin hurtle through the air during a press conference following the extraordinary FIFA Executive Committee at the FIFA headquarters in Zurich, Switzerland, 20 July 2015. EPA/ENNIO LEANZA.