Nigeria Content Online

Mohammed
Bin Hammam will be the only challenger for the FIFA presidency when
incumbent Sepp Blatter stands for re-election on June 1, soccer’s world
governing body confirmed Monday.

FIFA said that
Swiss Blatter, who has been president since 1998 and will be trying for
a fourth term, and Qatari multi-millionaire businessman, Bin Hammam
were the only candidates to register by the April 1 deadline.

The election will
be held on June 1 at the FIFA Congress in Zurich where each one of the
208 member national associations holds a vote, provided they are not
suspended at the time.

There had been two
other possible candidates but US journalist, Grant Wahl, said he failed
to get the written support of one national football association, which
candidates must have, and former Chile captain, Elias Figueroa, pulled
out last Thursday.

Figueroa, one of
South America’s most respected footballers, was representing a group
called Change FIFA but said he did not have enough time from which to
launch a creditable platform.

Humble beginning

Blatter, FIFA’s
eighth president since the organisation was founded in 1904, joined as
a technical officer in 1975 and was general secretary from 1981 to 1998
under the presidency of Joao Havelange.

In 1998 he swept to
a 111-80 victory over Swede, Lennart Johansson, then UEFA president,
who conceded defeat, forgoing a second ballot.

Four years later,
Blatter took a landslide 139-56 vote victory over Cameroon’s Issa
Hayatou, the president of the African confederation, and if anything,
his grip on FIFA has tightened since then.

There were no opponents when he was re-elected in 2007.

Under Blatter’s
leadership, FIFA took the World Cup to Africa for the first time,
holding what was widely seen as a successful tournament in South Africa.

Bin Hammam, 61, is also a candidate from within FIFA, having been a member of the powerful executive committee since 1996.

Although he was not
part of the bidding team, he played a huge role in securing Qatar the
rights to stage the 2022 World Cup finals in December.

A former Blatter
ally, he helped the Swiss win the elections in 1998 and 2002 but has
been increasingly critical of Blatter’s leadership, saying that change
is needed at the top and FIFA needs a new figurehead.

FIFA have confirmed that Bosnia and Brunei are the only two associations currently suspended.