AFC President and FIFA Vice President Sheikh Salman Bin Ebrahim Al Khalifa speaks at the 26th Asian Football Confederation (AFC) Congress in Manama Congress in Manama Thursday. — Reuters
MANAMA — Sheikh Salman Bin Ebrahim Al Khalifa was re-elected as president of the Asian Football Confederation Thursday.
The 47-member Asian body also elected Sheikh Ahmad Fahad Al Ahmad Al Sabah of Kuwait to a seat on the FIFA executive committee. Sheikh Ahmad, who chose to run for a two-year mandate instead of four, is widely seen as a potential FIFA president in 2019.
Both candidates were elected unopposed.
Sheikh Salman also gets the FIFA vice presidency allocated to Asia. Both of his positions have a four-year mandate.
The FIFA position had been held by Prince Ali Bin Al Hussein of Jordan since an election in 2011. The AFC changed its statutes last year to give it automatically to the president.
Prince Ali chose not to challenge Sheikh Salman, nor seek a FIFA executive committee seat. Instead, he is a candidate in the FIFA presidential election on May 29 where 79-year-old incumbent Sepp Blatter is strongly favored to get a fifth term in office.
Sheikh Salman has led the AFC since 2013, when he was elected to take over for Mohamed Bin Hammam of Qatar. FIFA expelled Bin Hammam for alleged mismanagement of AFC finances.
In an earlier speech to delegates, Blatter praised Sheikh Salman for his “remarkable sense of organization and diplomacy.”
Blatter said the Bahraini royal family member has brought back “the boat of the Asian Football Confederation that at a certain time has been in waters that were not so very clear or ... so very clean.”
Sheikh Ahmad and Sheikh Salman were joined on the executive committee by Prince Abdullah Sultan Ahmad Shah of Malaysia and Kozo Tashima of Japan who will serve for four years.
Tashima polled 36 votes and Shah 25 meaning that long-serving Thailand's Worawi Makudi, who had been on the FIFA exco since 1997, was not re-elected at the end of his term after polling only 13 votes.
Chung Mong-gyu of South Korea, a relative of former FIFA executive committee member Chung Mong-joon also polled 13 votes and was not elected. A former officer in the Kuwaiti Army and the former chairman of oil cartel OPEC the 51-year-old Sheikh Ahmad exerts influence through his many sporting positions.
He is currently the head of the Association of National Committees (ANOC), the Olympic Council of Asia (OCA) and the Solidarity Commission of the International Olympic Committee.
He is also the founder and president of the Pan-Arab Rowing Federation, among other pan-Arab sporting bodies and also is the honorary president of the Kuwait FA.
Meanwhile, AFC chief silenced a South Korean protest over voting as he flexed his muscles shortly after being handed a fresh term in office. Sheikh Salman refused to let Korea's soccer boss Chung Mong-Gyu speak when he tried to complain about voting.
Chung said “I want to make a statement” but when he wasn't given permission, he approached the stage for an animated discussion with Sheikh Salman.
The Bahraini royal then told the congress: “If anyone would like to make a statement, it has to be by written request. We can open the floor and everybody can talk. If I allow Korea we will have 10 or 20 other members who would like to talk. This will not get us anywhere.” — Agencies
