Tuesday, November 09, 2010

HAMMAM UNOPPOSED

FIFA executive committee member Mohamed Bin Hammam will be unopposed for a third and final four-year term serving as president of the Asian Football Confederation.

The AFC said Monday that the Qatari is the only candidate in a scheduled Jan. 6 vote at its congress in Doha. Its rules limit presidents to three terms, and 12 years, in office.

The confederation also published the list of candidates competing to represent Asia on FIFA's ruling executive committee, including its most senior role as a vice-president of soccer's world governing body.

Asia's soccer countries will choose between the incumbent Chung Mong-Joon of South Korea and the challenger Prince Ali Bin al-Hussein of Jordan.

Chung has been linked with a challenge to FIFA president Sepp Blatter, whose own third term ends next year.

The 34-year-old Prince Ali helped create and leads the West Asian Football Federation, which contains 13 teams including Iran, Iraq, Palestine and Qatar.

FIFA executive committee terms are expiring next year for Thailand's Worawi Makudi and Japan's Junji Ogura, who is 72 and barred by AFC age rules from standing.

The AFC said candidates for the four-year mandate are Makudi, current AFC vice-presidents Vernon Manilal Fernando of Sri Lanka and China's Zhang Jilong, plus Kohzo Tashima of Japan.

Zhang served on the 2008 Beijing Olympics organizing committee. Tashima is general secretary of Japan's soccer association and a member of its 2022 World Cup bidding team.

Bin Hammam's FIFA executive seat is secure through 2013, after he won a bitterly fought election against Bahrain's Sheik Salman bin Ebrahim Al-Khalifa in May last year.

Asia provides four members of FIFA's 24-member ruling panel, whose most important task is choosing World Cup hosts.

The current FIFA executive committee will vote for the 2018 and 2022 host nations in a secret ballot on Dec. 2 in Zurich.

The AFC has four contenders in the 2022 poll, with Australia, Japan, Qatar and South Korea taking on the United States.