Yahoo – AFP,
6 Jan 2015
FIFA
vice-president Prince Ali bin Al Hussein of Jordan speaks during the Soccerex
Global Convention 2014 in Manchester on September 8, 2014 (AFP Photo/Paul
Ellis)
|
Amman (AFP)
- FIFA Vice-President Prince Ali bin Al Hussein said Tuesday he would stand
against Sepp Blatter for presidency of football's world governing body,
declaring that years of controversy surrounding "the beautiful sport"
must end.
"I am
seeking the presidency of FIFA because I believe it is time to shift the focus
away from administrative controversy and back to sport," Prince Ali said
on his official Twitter feed.
"The
headlines should be about football, the beautiful sport, not about FIFA."
FIFA
president Sepp Blatter at a press
conference in the Moroccan city of
Marrakesh
on December 19, 2014 (AFP
Photo/Fadel Senna)
|
"This
was not an easy decision. It came after careful consideration and many
discussions with respected FIFA colleagues over the last few months," he
said.
"The
message I heard, over and over, was that it is time for a change. The world
game deserves a world-class governing body -- an International Federation that
is a service organisation and a model of ethics, transparency and good
governance."
FIFA has
been steeped in controversy and allegations of corruption since Russia and
Qatar's successful bids to host the 2018 and 2022 World Cups.
Prince Ali,
the 39-year-old son of the late King Hussein of Jordan, had been one of the
most senior FIFA officials to call for the publication in full of a report last
year into the winning bids.
But FIFA's
executive voted to release only an "appropriate", edited version of
top US lawyer Michael Garcia's report into the alleged corruption and Blatter
last month ruled out any suggestion that Qatar could lose the tournament.
"It
would really need an earthquake, extremely important new elements to go back on
this World Cup in Qatar," Blatter said.
FIFA and
Blatter have sought, without success, to silence critics of the Qatari and
Russian bids, and it will now looks as if they will become the election
battleground.
Prince Ali
is the FIFA vice-president for Asia and founder of the Jordanian and West Asian
Football Federations and is standing to prevent Blatter win a fifth term in
office since the Swiss was first elected in 1998.
A computer
generated image released by the Organising Committee of Qatar 2022
on June 21,
2013, shows the stadium to be built in Al-Khor for the Qatar 2022 World
Cup
(AFP Photo)
|
Frenchman
Jerome Champagne had been the only other candidate to declare so far that he
would stand against Blatter.
Prince Ali
will need five of FIFA's 209 member countries to nominate him as a candidate
before a January 29 deadline and is believed to have plenty of support,
including that of European football governing body UEFA president Michel
Platini.
The
Jordanian is likely to gain much of his backing from FIFA's European
federation, many of whose members have been vociferous in their objections to
the victorious Qatar 2022 bid.
He will
also lobby support from the Asian confederation, whose head is Bahrain's Sheik
Salman bin Ibrahim Al Khalifa, and will get further backing from the United States
and Caribbean nations.
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