U.S. Soccer President Sunil Gulati said Thursday that the federation would vote for Prince Ali bin al-Hussein of Jordan in Friday’s FIFA presidential election, turning away from the two front-runners to back the candidate U.S. Soccer supported in the previous election a year ago.
Advertisement
Prince Ali’s Paris lawyers – from the firm Szpiner, Toby, Ayela and Semerdjian – said they first sought FIFA’s agreement for CAS to decide the voting booth issue, but were rejected. CAS later announced it would decide by Thursday whether to stage a dramatic intervention in the election of Sepp Blatter’s successor as president of football’s scandal-plagued governing body.
“I have done all I can”. “For me, if the numbers are right, we can increase – but I am not ready to mortgage FIFA’s future in winning an election”.
FIFA’s ad hoc election committee, however, said delegates from the 209 voting nations should instead leave their mobile phones behind before entering the booths.
Postponement of Friday’s election would have thrown Federation Internationale de Football Association into total confusion since the extraordinary congress is charged, first, with voting on a package of reform proposals before turning to the election of a new president.
The leaders of world football began descending on Zurich yesterday for what they had been told would be one of the most crucial congresses in FIFA’s near 112-year history, only to discover it might not take place at all. Bahrain’s Sheikh Salman bin Ebrahim Al Khalifa, who along with Infantino is seen as a front-runner, was more cautious, speaking of a “realistic” increase in funding.
The FIFA executive committee includes Sheikh Ahmad of Kuwait, who is an influential FIFA and Olympic powerbroker and key player in the campaign of Sheikh Salman, the Asian soccer confederation president. “It’s now or never for Federation Internationale de Football Association”, he said. Prince Ali earned 73 votes in May, and he is believed to be behind co-favorites Gianni Infantino and Sheikh Salman in the pecking order for Friday’s vote.
The UEFA general secretary maintains that “once FIFA’s image and reputation has been rebuilt it will be easier to generate more revenue and have more funds at our disposal for development of football, which is what FIFA should do to start with”.
FIFA’s executive committee met on Wednesday, with acting president Issa Hayatou speaking on its behalf in calling for the reforms to be voted in on Friday.
What would be the point of having a transparent voting booth? Not enough for outright victory but the Jordanian prince conceded rather than force a second-round vote.
Advertisement
Rounding out the five-man presidential field are outsiders Frenchman Jerome Champagne, an ex-FIFA general secretary, and Tokyo Sexwale, the South African anti-apartheid campaigner involved in the 2010 World Cup in that country.
