Larry Mussenden may be the firm favourite to win the Concacaf presidential election next month but he is not taking anything for granted.

The removal of Gordon Derrick from the running has left Mussenden and Victor Montagliani, the Canada Soccer Association president, to battle it out for the region’s top job.

Derrick, the Antigua and Barbuda Football Association president, failed a Fifa integrity check, leaving Mussenden as the only Caribbean representative in the contest.

With 31 of the more than 40 votes up for grabs belonging to the Caribbean nations Mussenden’s supporters could be forgiven for thinking that the job is his to lose.

However, the Bermuda Football Association president, said that Derrick’s absence would do little to alter his campaign.

“I don’t think it changes what I do, it means there is still hard work to be done because I don’t take anything for granted,” he said. “I have to continue to reach out to the member associations, present my views and seek their support.”

Mussenden is acutely aware that he still has convince several Caribbean nations to back him, and after visiting St Maarten last weekend, where he outlined his plans for Concacaf to seven different members, is planning another trip to drum up support.

“I know that Gordon Derrick had people who did support him, and I respect that and I don’t take it for granted [that they would support me now],” he said. “And while I don’t know the definitive list of those people, I still have to continue to reach out to people, and will do.

One of the tasks Mussenden has before him is assuring potential supporters that he can balance the Concacaf role with his new position as Bermuda’s director of public prosecutions.

Mussenden though points to the professional staff at both organisations and the changes that will take place within Concacaf, where responsibility for the day-to-day running of the confederation will fall on a general secretary.

“Over the last 20 years I have been involved in law and football all the time, and have managed a number of responsibilities,” Mussenden said.

Success on May 12 in Mexico City would however mean the end of Mussenden’s time as the head of the BFA, and also bring to an end his chairmanship of the Fifa appeals committee. Both of which he would be required to step away from to avoid any conflicts of interest.

Concacaf said Luis Hernandez of Cuba and John Krishnadath were running for Fifa council member from the Caribbean, and Pedro Chaluja of Panama is unopposed for council member for the Caribbean.

Sonia Bien-Aime of Turks and Caicos, elected as the Caribbean’s member of the Fifa executive committee last July, is running for Concacaf’s female member of the new council against Joanne Salazar of Trinidad and Tobago.