January 29 – Harold Mayne-Nicholls, who has announced his decision to pull out of the race to stand for FIFA president against Sepp Blatter, has presented a full explanation of his reasoning.
The Chilean’s withdrawal left five people in the race but Mayne-Nicholls nevertheless provided a detailed breakdown of how he feels FIFA should develop. Below are some of the ideas presented in his speech.
1. The President of FIFA can only be re-elected once.
2. Larger number of roles for women.
3. Publish pay, salaries, allowances and any type of bonuses for anybody involved in FIFA. This also includes companies and services.
4. Try to attain maximum fair play on the pitch. Continue with research relating to the use of technology; measure the abilities of referees by their performances and not by their age and a blue card to calm impulsive and heated behaviour.
5. Analyse the possibility of having a World Cup with 36 teams.
6. Keep fighting against discrimination and highlight the elimination of violence from stadiums.
7. Improve the relationship between FIFA and the Confederations. Both should work together for the good of football.
8. Involve sponsors in countries that have not managed to qualify for an international tournament in the last 10 years.
9. Closer links between the FIFA authorities and the fans and wider public in general.
10. Transparency + dialogue + participation + democracy = 21st Century Football
11. Finally, as a mission statement: recover the credibility of fans in FIFA.
Mayne-Nicholls revealed all of the above were based around conversations that took place with the authorities of three confederations and 20 federations.
Explaining why he left his decision so late, he said: “Until the end of 2014, there were no other candidates apart from Blatter and Champagne. Today, there are two more candidates. Both are people with whom I share ideals, principles, values and ideas.”
“Prince Ali Bin Hussein of Jordan is a member of FIFA’s Executive Committee and President of the Football Federation in his country. Michael Van Praag is a member of UEFA’s Executive Committee and President of the Dutch Football Federation.
“Because of this, upon analysing the situation I can see that that my position looks rather weak, faced with these two powerful candidates. Consequently, I have shared my ideas with them and offered them all of my collaboration should they require it.
“I believe that I have made an important effort to contribute to the debate. I have put tasks on the table and have witnessed how others have assumed responsibility for these tasks. I think I have made a real contribution towards making FIFA more democratic, as is required by the world we now live in.”
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