Hehe, this is really getting interesting, Portugal legend Luis Figo has announced his decision to run for Fifa
president at this year's election as he aims to dethrone the
organisation's current leader Sepp Blatter.
The deadline for
candidates to declare their bid is Thursday, with Figo securing the
required backing of five Fifa member associations.
"I care about
football, so what I'm seeing regarding the image of Fifa, not only now
but in the past years, I don't like it," Figo told CNN.
"If
you search Fifa on the internet you see the first word that comes out:
scandal, not positive words. That's what we have to change first and try
to improve the image of Fifa. Football deserves much better than this.
"I've been talking with so many important people in football,
players, managers, president of federations, and they all think that
something has to be done.
"Last year was the World Cup, I was
in Brazil and I saw the reaction of all the fans regarding the image of
FIFA and I think something has to be changed.
"Change in leadership, governance, transparency and solidarity, so I think it's the moment for that."
The
ex-Barcelona, Real Madrid and Inter attacker then went on to explain
that Fifa's decision not to make Michael Garcia's infamous report on the
bidding process for the 2018 and 2022 World Cups public prompted him to
take action.
"After that report was not published I think that was the moment of
change and the moment I thought that something had to be done.
"If
you are transparent and if you ask for an investigation, a report,
which you have nothing to hide, why don't you make public that report?
If you have nothing to hide about that, you have to do it.
"[Publishing
the report] is the easy thing to do if all the people is doubting what
happened. If it came from Fifa to order that report and after that you
don't publish, it is not a good decision."
Jerome Champagne,
Prince Ali Bin Hussein, David Ginola and Michael van Praag had
previously already announced their decision to challenge Blatter, with
Mino Raiola pulling out of the race on Tuesday.
In order to be
eligible, a candidate has to have played an active role in association
football for two of the five years preceding his proposed candidature
and present declarations of support from at least five member
associations.
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