And indeed victory by any of incumbent Sepp Blatter’s trio of challengers – Luís Figo, Michael van Praag and Prince Ali bin Al-Hussein of Jordan - would render the assertion nonsensical.

But come on, does anyone seriously expect the old Swiss political maestro not to win, and sail on galleon-like into his fifth term in the world football hot-seat?

It still seems to me a matter of whether or not the 79 year-old Swiss administrator suffers the indignity of being forced into a second round of voting, in a development that probably would be a sign that his long reign finally was entering its twilight period after 17 years.

Blatter needs to poll two-thirds of members “present and eligible to vote” to prevent that.

That equates to 140 votes in the event of a full house, and if his rivals take most of Europe (though perhaps not the east), some of North and Central America and the Caribbean (CONCACAF), and the odd vote in Asia, that at least could yet be quite a close-run thing.

So, given that the election is unlikely to dislodge the President there and then, the arrival in FIFA’s Executive Committee of a figure one could actually imagine Blatter endorsing as his successor becomes an event of some significance: big potatoes.

I would certainly be surprised if the likes of Jeffrey Webb and Michel Platini, widely seen hitherto as leading candidates for the big job in 2019, did not take a close interest in Thursday’s news from Bahrain.

Interest in the new arrival - 51-year-old Sheikh Ahmad Al Fahad Al Sabah - is likely to be all the keener given that he is already one of the foremost power-brokers in world sport.

President of both the Olympic Council of Asia (OCA) and the Association of National Olympic Committees (ANOC), an International Olympic Committee (IOC) member of 23 years’ standing already and close ally of IOC President Thomas Bach, “The Sheikh” as he is generally referred to also has some pretty heavyweight credentials beyond the field of sport, most notably as a past chairman of OPEC, the oil producers’ cartel.

Of course, commentators - including this one - have erred in predicting the timing of Blatter’s exit before.

And as someone who gives every impression of relishing the job he has held since 1998 with every fibre of his being, you have to figure that if the Swiss septuagenarian could plot a path to stay on for another 10 years, he probably would.

But I am not alone in thinking that time has finally appeared to be catching up at least a little with the FIFA President just lately, although few 79-year-olds are blessed with his infectious, irrepressible energy.

You cannot help but wonder too how much of an appetite even he retains for soaking up the ridicule and vitriol continually flung in his direction, even though such derogatory views of him and the organisation he heads are not universal.

Rumours have been doing the rounds lately to the effect that, if re-elected, he might not serve a full term.

I will believe that only when I hear Blatter himself say so, unambiguously, using words of no more than two syllables.

However, if the rumours turn out to be correct, Sheikh Ahmad’s decision to run only for a two-year term on FIFA’s Executive Committee may also turn out to be highly significant.

Though he is better known for now in Olympic circles, football is in Sheikh Ahmad’s blood.

His late father, Sheikh Fahad, was famously involved in the disallowing of a French goal against Kuwait at the1982 World Cup in Spain.

The Kuwaitis, it was said, were distracted by a whistle from the Valladolid crowd and stopped playing, allowing the French team, including Platini, an easy goal.

Sheikh Fahad, watching in the stand, threatened to take the players off the pitch, apparently prompting the referee to annul the goal.

Though the episode has been included in lists of bizarre and controversial football incidents, my hunch would be that Sheikh Ahmad, and indeed Kuwaitis in general, take pride in a perceived injustice overturned.

Arguably as adroit a sports politician as Blatter himself, Sheikh Ahmad benefits, I think, from a slight tendency by some non-Arabs to underestimate him.

His English may be imperfect and heavily accented, but few are better at conveying the key message from a given event or meeting in four or five idiosyncratic sentences.

He is a long-term, strategic thinker, and he is given space to do this by the trusted, highly efficient entourage with whom he travels the world.

His alliance with Bach is a vital source of strength for both men.

Their respective stars are currently sufficiently in the ascendant to permit them to control the Olympic Movement almost effortlessly, especially now a third member of the triumvirate at the pinnacle of this world, SportAccord President Marius Vizer, has isolated himself through his pugnacious speech in Sochi last week.

This state of affairs may not - indeed will not - last.

But for the foreseeable future, the alliance between the two men looks set to be the key power axis in the Movement as it seeks to battle back against charges of extravagance and lack of transparency, and to retain relevance with a generation of young people for whom sport is less of an automatic choice in the internet age than it was when the vast majority of top global decision-makers were 20.

Notwithstanding the Movement’s present difficulties, FIFA has much to learn from the IOC, which could have been brought to its knees by the Salt Lake City scandal, in matters of reputational management – indeed, I would argue, in matters of management pure and simple.

To take an example, the football body still stubbornly refuses to disclose the President’s salary; the IOC, by contrast, made almost too much of a song and dance a few weeks ago of disclosing Bach’s annual indemnity payment of €225,000 (£164,000/$243,000).

Then again, football over the years has proved so much better than most other Olympic disciplines at marketing itself, that it has become the one truly global sport.

Sheikh Ahmad’s arrival on the FIFA Executive Committee, whether or not he truly does turn out to be the leader-in-waiting that some, even inside FIFA, suspect, can hardly fail to bring the two organisations closer together.

Let us hope it is to their mutual benefit.