Prince Ali loses bid to suspend Friday’s vote

Sunil Gulati, the federation president and the FIFA executive committee representative for the United States, announced via Twitter on Thursday that the USA will vote for Prince Ali Al Hussein.

It’ll be the biggest soccer story in the world on Friday: the election to replace Sepp Blatter as new Federation Internationale de Football Association president.

Seven FIFA officials, including two vice presidents, are arrested in a police raid on a Zurich hotel on the eve of a FIFA congress. Those arrested are among 14 wanted by U.S. prosecutors over $150 million (136 million euros) bribery allegations, including buying and selling votes for South Africa to be awarded the 2010 World Cup.

Prince Ali bin al Hussein is seeking reassurances over the voting procedure for Friday’s Fifa presidential election after world football’s governing body dismissed his idea to use transparent polling booths. That prompted this week’s extraordinary congress and led to Prince Ali’s request as he bids to ensure a fair election.

Last week rival candidate Jerome Champagne persuaded the Federation Internationale de Football Association electoral committee to prohibit voters taking mobile phones with them into the booth.

But instead the ballot will be in secret, meaning promises that have been made to candidates can be broken out of the view of the protagonists.

“We understand in the first round people will vote based on other alliances but in the second round, where we are going to go, it will be different”.

Niersbach said in Zurich on Thursday that if media reports about Sheikh Salman’s role were accurate “then it’s a very, very hard situation to plan the future with a person at the top who, let me be cautious, may carry a burden”.

Japan, South Korea, China, North Korea, Hong Kong, Guam, Taiwan, Macau and Mongolia say they will vote for the Bahraini in the five-man election.

Blatter has since been banned from football for six years for ethics breaches and could face criminal charges.

But he is considered an underdog in a what has turned out to be two horse race with UEFA’s secretary general Gianni Infantino and Asian Football Confederation president Sheikh Salman bin Ebrahim al-Khalifa the favourites.

The FIFA executive committee includes Sheikh Ahmad of Kuwait, who is an influential FIFA and Olympic powerbroker and key player in the campaign of Sheikh Salman, the Asian soccer confederation president.

“After FIFA requested urgent information from the Bahrain FA regarding the misappropriation of funds, Sheikh Salman did not comment until early December 2009, at which point he denied those claims, however the Bahrain FA did not dispute the contents of the leaked documents”, said Collins, who did not specify which documents he was referring to.

The leaders of world football began descending on Zurich yesterday for what they had been told would be one of the most crucial congresses in FIFA’s near 112-year history, only to discover it might not take place at all.