Candidate Prince Ali wants two-term limit for FIFA president

The FIFA president should not hold the post longer than two terms, Prince Ali Bin Al Hussein of Jordan, who is running for the world football governing body's presidency, said on Thursday.

The FIFA executive committee in December approved proposals to reform the world's ruling football body, including limiting the term its president can serve to 12 years, replacing the 25-member executive committee with a 36-member council and cutting the number of committees from 26 to nine, reports Tass.

"I think I've seen through the proposals that they are talking about three term limit," the prince said.

"My point of view is this - I come from a national association, I've been president of it for many years. It's a bit different than the FIFA president because when you are in a national association, you have your teams, you have your leagues to deal with whereas the FIFA president is there to serve 209 national associations together."

"So, therefore, I do believe that a two-term limit should be the maximum. And it also gives an opportunity for new ideas, new people to come in," Prince Ali added.

Prince Ali also said he is not going to withdraw his candidacy in the February election of a new chief of the world's ruling football body. The election will be held on February 26 in Zurich.

Ali will run for FIFA president for the second time. He made his first attempt in late May but pulled out after the first round of votes.

"One of the key difficulties within FIFA is that we were all separated within zones, confederations. But football is the language for the whole world. So I am there to unite," Prince Ali said.

"And I think that because we had only a few months at the first time it was difficult to make an impression or to get everybody to know who I am whether it's the public, national associations and so on. But I think that for me that this is the continuation of the journey that I am determined to finish. And I will do that," he added.

The other official candidates registered for the election are European football's ruling body UEFA secretary general Gianni Infantino; president of the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) Sheikh Salman bin Ebrahim Al Khalifa; South Africa's former minister of housing construction Tokyo Sexwale and former FIFA secretary general Jerome Champagne.

Current FIFA president Sepp Blatter, 79, was re-elected for his fifth consecutive four-year presidential term on May 29, when his only rival Prince Ali Bin pulled out after the first round of voting. The election came amid an unprecedented corruption scandal: two days before the voting seven FIFA officials were detained on corruption charges.

Blatter announced his plans to resign on June 2, noting that he would remain president until the new elections due on February 26, 2016. FIFA's ethics committee provisionally suspended Blatter in October from any activities related to football for 90 days.

--Indo-Asian news Service

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