Hammam's manifesto

AFC President Mohamed Bin Hammam announced his candidature for the position of FIFA President at a packed press conference on Friday.

Elections for the President of world football's governing body will be held in Zurich on June 1, 2011.

“Today, after careful study, consultation and consideration, armed with my love and passion for football and believing that football is about fair competition, I have decided to contest the upcoming FIFA Presidency election, scheduled on June 1, 2011,” he announced at AFC House.

“I am glad to say that the AFC Executive Committee encouraged me and supported me in my candidacy and I am inviting the member associations, football communities and media to be part of my humble endeavour to make the change that is necessary and needed in FIFA.”

The 61-year-old Qatari, who is into his third term as AFC President, revealed his vision for the world game.

“I will be looking to develop the game to its best in both professional and amateur levels, on and off the field and make it accessible to each and every level of our global community.”

Outlining his election manifesto he said: “I will always put in mind and consider among other things the diversity of the interests and the views of different football stake holders; member associations, clubs, leagues, players and officials; the demands from the public to keep FIFA and football organisations above accusations and suspicion of negative practice; the demands of the public to create an absolute, ethical, democratic and transparent environment within FIFA; the necessity for strong unity and solidarity among member associations; the need for fair distribution of World Cup revenues between the different stake holders, taking into consideration that FIFA must build sufficient reserves to help it through difficult times and the principal of solidarity must pervade for all of our stakeholders.

"I will always put into consideration the need and the requirement of economically underprivileged member associations to have more technical and financial support to enable them to close the gap between their nations and those of the advanced football nations.”

He also proposed to form a FIFA Board in place of the existing FIFA Executive Committee, if elected, and increase the number of seats for all the confederations.

“I propose UEFA gets four more seats, CAF four more seats, Asia four more seats, CONCACAF three more seats, CONMEBOL one more seat and OFC one more seat,” he said.

“A new executive committee will be coming, 40 members plus the president is 41 and it will avoid as much as possible for the privilege of the casting vote going to the president.”

“I will rename the Executive Committee the FIFA Board and will transfer all the duties and the responsibilities of the Executive Committee as it is today to the FIFA Board. I will establish an Executive Office. The President of FIFA will be the Chairman and the six presidents of the six confederations will be the members of this office. This office will be responsible to execute the decision of the Board. Collectively and jointly, the President of FIFA and the Presidents of the confederations will be responsible for executing the decisions of the FIFA Board.”

“Secondly, I will decentralise the activities of the FIFA administration. The legal matters, like the statutes and international transfers, and statutory issues can be handled directly by the confederations under the supervision of their executive bodies.”

“I will establish a Transparency Committee. FIFA has an Ethical Committee checking acts after they happen. The Transparency Committee is going to be sure that all the acts of FIFA are sufficiently transparent to the public before they take place.

He also proposed to increase the financial assistance to the member associations from US$250,000 to US$500,000 per year.

“I also propose to increase the financial assistance to the member associations from US$250,000 to US$500,000 per year and I also propose that the budget of the Goal Project, for each project, to be increased up to US$1 million per project." - AFC.