Written by Phillip Bupp at Bloguin
FIFA released the list of FIFA presidential candidates and have narrowed the list down to five people after all candidates underwent integrity checks by the FIFA Ethics Committee. Musa Bility of Liberia and most notable, currently suspended UEFA President Michel Platini were not among the five.
In Platini’s case, the Ethics Committee will not consider his candidacy or give a review until his suspension is lifted. I don’t know, shouldn’t being suspended for 90 days because of irregular payments constitute failing an integrity check? I guess not in FIFA.
Anyway, the five candidates approved also have some shady pasts in the forms of possible bribery and torture of people so maybe the integrity checks were graded on a curve. Here is a summary of the five candidates.
Prince Ali bin al-Hussein – Jordan
Prince Ali is currently President of the Jordan FA as well as a Vice-President of FIFA on the Executive Committee. Prince Ali ran against Sepp Blatter earlier this year for FIFA President and lost.
As far as we know, Prince Ali’s name has been clean of corruption. He called for publishing the full Garcia Report, which detailed the possible corruption during the 2018 and 2022 World Cup bid process, which Russia and Qatar won.
Another accomplishment for Prince Ali was that he was able to get FIFA to lift their ban on Muslim women wearing a hijab that covers all but their face when they play soccer. Before that, women could not wear a hijab and to some in the Muslim religion, violated their religious beliefs. Prince Ali made it so women could have the choice to wear a hijab during play or not.
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