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US and Mexican Soccer Chiefs to Compete for Fifa Seat as West Asia Considers Options in AFC Election |
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Football - 07 Mar 2013 - Sunil Gulati, the president of the US Soccer Federation, and Justino Compeán, his counterpart at Femexfut (FMF), the equivalent body in Mexico, are to compete for one seat on the executive committee of Fifa, soccer’s international governing body, next month.
Concacaf, the governing body for soccer in North and Central America and the Caribbean, said yesterday that its 40 member associations will vote to decide on their representative at an election in Panama City on April 19.
The winner’s four-year term will run until 2017.
Gulati and Compeán, who represent the dominant countries in Concacaf, are looking to succeed Chuck Blazer, the US soccer official, who has decided not to seek re-election after 16 years on the Fifa executive committee.
However, Gulati is facing a challenge to his place on the Concacaf executive committee, with Canada's Victor Montagliani standing against him.
Concacaf president Jeffrey Webb of the Cayman Islands is standing unopposed to remain the representative of the Caribbean associations on the governing body’s executive committee. He is already a Fifa vice president and a member of the international federation’s executive committee.
Concacaf’s other representative at Fifa is Rafael Salguero of Guatemala, whose position is not up for election this time round.
The confederation is seeking to rebuild its reputation after damage caused to it by Jack Warner, the Trinidadian who resigned from his soccer posts, including president of Concacaf, in June 2011 after being becoming embroiled in a ‘cash for votes’ scandal.
It was Blazer’s claims of foul play at a meeting of Caribbean Football Union officials in Trinidad and Tobago that let to Mohamed Bin Hammam, then head of the Asian Football Confederation and a Fifa executive committee member, who had been set to challenge incumbent Sepp Blatter for the Fifa presidency, being banned from soccer.
There were also allegations against Warner, a long-time ally of Blazer, but the investigation was dropped after he stepped down as president of Concacaf and a vice president of Fifa.
The AFC is set to elect a new president in May but efforts by the West Asian Football Federation to agree on a consensus candidate did not come to a resolution today.
Prince Ali Bin Al Hussein of Jordan, the president of WAFF, called a meeting in Amman today amid concerns that the region’s candidates – Hafez Ibrahim Al Medlej of Saudi Arabia, Shaikh Salman bin Ibrahim Al Khalifa from Bahrain and Yousuf Al Serkal from the United Arab Emirates – could take votes off each other in the poll in Kuala Lumpur on May 2.
The other candidate is Worawi Makudi of Thailand, who has already secured the support of the ASEAN Football Federation, which represents 11 AFC countries in south-east Asia, and another AFC member in Australia.
In a statement, the WAFF said: “The meeting concluded with a unanimous statement extending West Asia’s support to all contesting candidates from the region with full agreement to continue discussions next month with the objective of seeking consensus. Attendees also agreed to give the opportunity to all candidates to further consultations amongst each other.”
The winner of the election, which will involve 47 AFC members, will succeed China’s Zhang Jilong, who has been serving as acting AFC president since the suspension of bin Hammam in 2011.
Zhang announced at the weekend that he had decided not to extend his time as head of Asian soccer.
In May, the AFC members will also appoint a new Asian member of the Fifa executive committee for 2013 to 2017, with Shaikh Salman up against Hassan Al Thawadi of Qatar.
Sportcal |
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