FIFA presidential candidate Prince Ali bin al-Hussein of Jordan speaks at the National Press Club in Washington on Friday.

Agencies /Washington


FIFA presidential candidate Prince Ali bin al-Hussein of Jordan says the world football governing body has no choice to reform but believes it can do so from within.
“The latest announcement by the US Justice Department should remove any doubt about the need for reform at FIFA,” Prince Ali said at the National Press Club in Washington late on Friday. “The clock on corruption has run out, and it is time for a change. I reject the notion that FIFA cannot be reformed from within.”
On Thursday, US attorney general Loretta Lynch announced 16 more football officials had been indicted for various corruption charges. Under-fire FIFA president Joseph Blatter, who is currently suspended from football, has said he will stand down at an extraordinary congress in Zurich on February 26 next year.
Prince Ali, who lost to Blatter in May’s presidential election, is one of five candidates standing in February alongside Asian confederation chief Sheikh Salman bin Ebrahim al-Khalifah of Bahrain, Frenchman and former FIFA official Jerome Chamgagne, UEFA secretary general Gianni Infantino of Switzerland and South African Tokyo Sexwale. “It (FIFA) is not beyond saving,” Hussein said. “At the end of the day we do need a change of leadership at the top. It’s a change of culture that we need.”

Former Peru football chief arrested in FIFA graft probe
The former longtime president of Peru’s football federation, Manuel Burga, has been arrested as part of an ongoing US-led investigation into corruption at the sport’s world governing body, FIFA.
Burga is among 16 people, including current and former Latin American football chiefs, who were charged on Thursday with multimillion-dollar bribery schemes for marketing and broadcast rights. Burga, 58, who was head of the Peruvian Football Federation (FPF) for 12 years until 2014, denied wrongdoing as police arrested him late on Friday outside his home in the Peruvian capital, Lima. “I’m helping police with their enquiries, I’d been waiting for them... They’d already informed me that I would see an arrest warrant,” Burga told local television reporters who had gathered outside his house.
“I reiterate that I’m innocent. I haven’t received any bungs or bribes,” he said, before being driven away in a police car.
Police chief Vicente Romero said officers were acting on an international warrant for Burga’s arrest. It was not immediately clear if Burga remained in police custody yesterday and a US Embassy spokesman declined to comment on whether he would be extradited to the United States. Burga won reelection as FPF president twice but was barred last year by the organisation from running for a fourth term as criticism grew over his management of the federation.  

Doumbia to remove electronic tag during matches
Toulouse’s Franco-Malian midfielder Tongo Doumbia, convicted for multiple traffic offences, will not have to wear his electronic bracelet during matches, sources close to the player confirmed yesterday. Malian international Doumbia, 26, has been wearing the bracelet since the beginning of the week, but has been allowed to remove it for training sessions and matches. “He has absolutely not benefited from favourable treatment. Each time his bracelet is removed the time is added on to his penalty,” the source said.
The midfielder received an eight-month prison sentence in August for drink driving and driving without a licence or insurance. He returned to competition yesterday after being sidelined with a thigh injury since October as Toulouse, second last in Ligue 1, host mid-table Lorient.

AFC bans 5 in Nepal, 1 in Tajikistan for life
The Asian Football Confederation has imposed lifetime bans for match-fixing on four players and an official in Nepal and a Tajik referee. “These cases show that the AFC’s strategy against match-fixing is delivering concrete results,” the regional body said in a statement late Friday, adding that it has “a zero tolerance to match-manipulation”.
Nepali official Anjan K C and the four players—Bikash Singh Chhetri, Sandip Rai, Ritesh Thapa and Sagar Thapa—were found guilty of offences relating to various friendly internationals during the period 2008-2012.
Tajik referee Murtazoev Parviz was found guilty of conspiring to influence the result of an October 6, 2015 match between the Maldives and Tajikistan in the AFC U-19 Championship.
Parviz, who was the game’s appointed referee liaison officer, attempted to corrupt the match referee who reported the offence.
All six had been provisionally banned by the regional governing body’s disciplinary committee in October.


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