Prince Ali asks FIFA to investigate vote rival Sheikh Salman

LONDON: The campaign to succeed Sepp Blatter as FIFA chief turned bitter
on Friday when a presidential candidate asked for an investigation into
whether his main rival is trying to break election rules. Prince Ali bin alHussein accused Sheikh Salman bin Ibrahim al Khalifa of a blatant
attempt to engineer a bloc vote by signing a pact between the Asian
Football Confederation he heads and its counterpart in Africa. With 54
voters, Africa has the biggest say in the Feb. 26 presidential vote by FIFAs
209 federations. The four-year accord is between the AFC and the
Confederation of African Football headed by Issa Hayatou, who is also
acting FIFA president following Blatters ban. It will be up to FIFA election
watchdog Domenico Scala, who chairs the audit and compliance
committee plus the electoral committee, to decide whether there is
anything wrong with the Africa-Asia deal being announced six weeks
before the vote. I am concerned that there has been an attempt to
breach electoral rules in the FIFA presidential election, Prince Ali, who is
also Jordanian Football Association president, said in a statement. I have
written to the FIFA ad-hoc electoral committee informing them of my
concerns and asking them to examine the matter. The escalating public
dispute between the presidential rivals both members of Middle East
royal families is damaging for FIFA as it tries to make a fresh start after
bribery and fraud scandals. Blatter was last month banned from the sport
for eight years over an unethical payment to UEFA President Michel Platini.
Bahrains Sheikh Salman, who is considered to the front-runner to replace
Blatter, signed the co-operation agreement with Hayatou at an event in
Rwanda on Friday ahead of the African Nations Championship. Described
as a re-launch of existing mutual ties, the memorandum of
understanding formalizes Asia and Africa helping each other on integrity,
administration and coaching issues. I have always promoted crossregional understanding, however the timing of this MoU between the AFC
and the CAF looks like a blatant attempt to engineer a bloc vote, Prince
Ali said. Africas proud football associations are not for sale and
development resources belonging to national football associations should
not be used by presidential candidates and confederation presidents for
political expediency. Questions must be asked: was this deal approved by
the members of the executive committees of both the AFC and CAF and is
the timing of the announcement, prior to a presidential election,
acceptable? Now more than ever, this apparent exploitation of
confederation resources shows the world that the actions of individuals
must stop bringing FIFA into disrepute. There was no immediate response
from Sheikh Salmans campaign. On the CAF website earlier Friday, Sheikh
Salman said: This is indeed a memorable day when our two great
confederations come together in the spirit of friendship and co-operation.
Sheikh Salman and Prince Ali are competing against UEFA general
secretary Gianni Infantino, former FIFA official Jerome Champagne and
South African businessman Tokyo Sexwale in a five-man election field.
Prince Ali was beaten in Mays presidential election by Blatter, who
announced resignation plans the following week in the wake of criminal
investigations into FIFA officials, and was later banished by the ethics

judge. The prince served on FIFAs executive committee from 2011 until
May 2015. --AP