World soccer’s governing body on Thursday approved the candidacy of five men in next year’s election to replace suspended incumbent Sepp Blatter. Here’s what you need to know about them.
From left: Prince Ali bin al Hussein, Sheikh Salman bin Ebrahim al-Khalifa, Jerome Champagne, Gianni Infantino, Tokyo Sexwale.
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FIFA — the scandal-plagued world governing body for soccer — on Thursday announced the five candidates it had approved to run for election to succeed suspended President Sepp Blatter in February 2016.
In a statement following an ad-hoc meeting of its electoral committee, FIFA said it had admitted and declared the candidacies of Jordan's Prince Ali bin al-Hussein, Bahrain's Sheikh Salman Bin Ebrahim al-Khalifa, France's Jérôme Champagne, Swiss-Italian Gianni Infantino, and South Africa's Tokyo Sexwale.
All candidates had to go through an "integrity check" before they were approved to run, FIFA said.
Another candidate — Liberian Musa Hassan Bility — was not included on the five-man list "in view of the content of the integrity check report relating to him." FIFA said it would not comment on the specifics of its decision.
As previously announced, the candidacy of UEFA President Michel Platini — who was suspended along with Blatter and FIFA Secretary-General Jerome Valcke last month — will only be admitted if his suspension is lifted before the February election date.
Here's what you need to know about the five men in the running for the role:
Prince Ali bin al-Hussein
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Prince Ali — a member of Jordan's royal family — is president of his country's soccer association, and holds the vice-presidency of FIFA for Asia.
He has a close resemblance to his late father — King Hussein — and his mother, Queen Alia, died in a helicopter accident when he was young. He graduated from the U.K.'s prestigious Sandhurst military training academy, before moving onto Princeton, according to The Guardian.
He challenged Sepp Blatter in the 79-year-old Swiss's ultimately successful bid to be re-elected FIFA president in May, but withdrew from the running in the second round of voting with Blatter comfortably ahead.
He was one of the first to announce his candidacy to replace Blatter in September, and wrote a letter to FIFA member associations talking up his credentials as a soccer federation chief, and saying that individual associations should not be caught up in the scandal in FIFA's leadership. He has positioned himself as a reformist candidate.
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