By Andrew Warshaw
October 26 – Seizing his chance now that his own previous preference, Michel Platini, could be ruled out of the running, Asian football supremo Sheikh Salman Bin Ebrahim Al Khalifa has formally entered the race to become FIFA president.
The state-owned Bahrain News Agency said Sheikh Salman submitted the necessary paperwork to FIFA on Sunday, 24 hours ahead of the deadline for candidates to deliver the required nominations from a minimum five federations.
The Bahraini, who is closely allied with Asia’s most powerful sports administrator, Kuwait’s Sheikh Ahmad Al-Fahad Al-Sabah, said last week he would only become a candidate if he had the necessary support from colleagues in the region but said he had being urged to stand by “senior” global figures and now becomes a leading challenger to take over from Sepp Blatter on February 26.
Sheikh Salman had initially backed Platini but once the UEFA president was suspended over the 2011 receipt of SFr2 million for work carried out on behalf of Blatter nine years earlier, the whole picture changed radically.
Platini has appealed the ban and could yet be let back into the race if he is somehow successful in overturning the judgement.
Sheikh Salman, who has only been Asian Football Confederation president for two years, submitted his application after talks with the interim FIFA president and African Football leader Issa Hayatou in Cairo, according to reports from Bahrain. His decision means a mouth-watering head-to-head confrontation with another royal contender in Prince Ali Bin Al Hussein.
There is no love lost between the pair and the Jordanian, defeated by Blatter at the last election in May when he was the sole opponent, will hope to split the Asian vote, just as he believes he did last time when members were mandated to vote for the veteran Swiss who has ruled FIFA since 1998.
Sheikh Salman’s candidacy brings to six the number of contenders after South African human rights icon Tokyo Sexwale announced he too would be standing.
Former Trinidad and Tobago midfielder David Nakhid says he has submitted his papers to FIFA along with former FIFA deputy general secretary Jerome Champagne – and Platini. It is not known whether Zico, the former Brazilian World Cup star, has managed to receive the necessary support while UEFA, at the time of writing, had yet to decide whether to put forward a face-saving backup candidate in case Platini is not cleared in time for the extraordinary elective congress.
Although the deadline for applications is midnight Monday, it could be late Tuesday or even Wednesday before FIFA announces the full list. Then it will take another week or so for integrity checks to be conducted.
In officially announcing Salman’s candidacy, the AFC said he had assured the confederation’s executive committee and its 47 member associations “that his campaign will be entirely self-financed and that he will not use the AFC’s resources, human or otherwise, in the election.”
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