By Andrew Warshaw
October 27 – Within hours of officially putting his name forward as a FIFA presidential candidate, Asian football supremo Sheikh Salman Bin Ebrahim Al Khalifa has given his first public reaction to the wave of accusations over his alleged involvement in human rights abuses in his native Bahrain, calling them “damaging” and “nasty lies”.
The Asian Football Confederation president has constantly been the target of human rights groups and media for alleged complicity in the detention and torture of footballers and other athletes who are reported to have participated in Bahrain’s 2011 pro-democracy uprising. It is also claimed he blocked an independent audit of AFC finances three years ago.
But in a wide-ranging interview with the BBC he totally denied any involvement in human rights violations, suggesting there was a smear campaign against him.
“I cannot deny something that I haven’t done,” he said. “We have to be clear on that. People get to know you as a person, who you really are. Such accusations are not just damaging, it’s really hurting. Some people have an agenda on their table. It’s not just damaging me, it’s damaging the people and the country. These are false, nasty lies that have been repeated again and again in the past and the present.”
In the interview, Salman, who only entered the bidding once the man he previously backed, Michel Platini, found himself suspended by FIFA’s ethics committee, said he supported the 2018 and 2022 World Cups going ahead in Russia and Qatar respectively, approved limiting the FIFA presidency to three terms and 12 years and vowed to clean up the organisation.
He also said he would not take a salary if he became president of FIFA.
“With the support I’m going to get we’re going to turn it around very quick,” he said. “We have big examples of football organisations around the world – the Premier League, the Bundesliga, even UEFA who from a football side and a revenue side (are) handled in a very professional way. And this is what we want to bring to FIFA.”
With seven other candidates in the running, Salman, already emerging as the front-runner, made a point of suggesting many of them were wasting their time without bloc support.
Possibly aiming his comments at his Asian rival Prince Ali bin al-Hussein of Jordan, the only challenger to Sepp Blatter last time and now having a second crack after being beaten 133-73, Salman said: “To the other candidates, they have to be realistic as well. Unless you are supported by your confederation it’s going to be a very difficult job.”
Salman mandated his confederation to back Blatter in May, only for the veteran Swiss to agree four days later to step down in February in the wake of the twin US and Swiss probes into corruption and those high-profile arrests in Zurich that sparked the entire FIFA scandal and placed Blatter under unprecedented pressure.
He refutes suggestions that supporting Blatter, and then Platini – both suspended – means that he himself will be regarded as an insider and too strong a link with the past. “It’s difficult to bring an outsider who nobody knows and say he’s the right person,” was Salman’s response. “Number two, I only joined two years ago and that’s not enough to be called an insider.”
He insisted he would run things differently with “a new image and a new way of doing things.”
“I’m not looking to be an executive president. We need to being the right people in and make the right choices. We have to look at the whole structure and management…so everyone knows exactly what’s going on. Obviously we have to have some safeguards within the organisation to make sure it is run in a proper and transparent way.”
Contact the writer of this story at moc.l1734906200labto1734906200ofdlr1734906200owedi1734906200sni@w1734906200ahsra1734906200w.wer1734906200dna1734906200