February 12 – FIFA presidential candidate Shaikh Salman bin Ebrahim Al Khalifa has signed an amended version of an Amnesty International pledge to end human rights abuses and corruption in the sport.
He handed a signed copy of the commitment to EU Commissioner for Youth, Culture and Sport Tibor Navracsics in Belgium on Wednesday ahead of his travel to Miami for the CONCACAF meetings.
Amnesty International alongside Football Supporters Europe, Human Rights Watch, Terre des Hommes, and Transparency International Germany had sent the pledge to all the FIFA presidential candidates asking them to sign before this weekend.
In his pledge Salman made two specific changes removing individual references to countries (Russia and Qatar), and abuses against women and LGBT groups.
He explained his changes saying that: “If we make a statement about equal rights and equal opportunities, it is obvious that we must practice an all-encompassing approach, which include all minorities and not solely those that were mentioned by Human Rights Watch in their original Pledge,” he said in a statement on Friday.
“I am of the view that we must not be selective in any area that concerns human rights.”
Separately in an interview with the Associated Press Salman said that that winning a contested election would not necessarily give him a stronger mandate. “If we go to election there will be losers and maybe sometimes you need to avoid that result,” he said.
As suggested by Russian sports minister and federation president Vitaly Mutko previously, Salman is reckons it could be better for FIFA if there is a clear indication of who will be elected, presumably preventing division and recriminations after the election.
With a pragmatism that is becoming something of a hallmark of his campaign, Salman said: “We have to be realistic. We know the chances of each candidate.”
“Every day we calculate. I am sure that, of course, it is positive,” Salman said. “I hope that Europe looks at it from an organisational point of view, and not an individual, on what is best.
“And if there is an agreement then I think it is a win-win. Everybody is involved and everybody has a share of the power and gets involved in the decision-making. But everybody has the right to run and go ahead. It is not up to me to decide on that.”
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