Prince Ali confident of winning FIFA presidency with clean vote

Johannesburg : Prince Ali Bin Al Hussein, who is running in the race to become the next FIFA president, has expressed his confidence of winning the leadership of the world’s football governing body, as long as the vote is clean.

The 39-year-old Jordanian said that there was an immediate need to conduct proper scrutiny in order to turn FIFA into a corruption-free organisation, Sport24 reported.

In a bid to restore the tattered image of FIFA, Prince Ali further called on the organization to provide clean people with the right leadership.

Prince Ali also demanded greater transparency within the organization. He insisted that even he was not aware of the amount of money being paid to the governing body’s president.

FIFA’s reputation took a severe beating when Sepp Blatter and his UEFA counterpart Michel Platini were given eight-year bans from all football-related activities over claims that the latter had received a ‘ disloyal payment ‘ of 1.35 million pounds from the outgoing president in 2011.

In addition to the lengthy bans, Blatter and Platini had been fined 50,000 and 80,000 Swiss francs respectively.

Following the ban, Platini withdrew his name from the presidential race in order to fully dedicate himself towards clearing his name.

With Platini’s withdrawal, only five candidates remain in the race for the next month’s election namely Prince Ali, the UEFA general secretary Gianni Infantino, Asian Football Confederation president Sheikh Salman, former diplomat Jerome Champagne and South African businessman Tokyo Sexwale. (ANI)