Dutch football head enters FIFA presidential contest
The president of the Dutch football association Michael van Praag, has announced plans to compete for FIFA’s top job. This brings the number of potential presidential candidates to five, including its current Swiss president, Sepp Blatter.
According to a statement issued by the Royal Netherlands Football Association, van Praag will send his official candidacy letter along with five declarations of support from national federations to FIFA headquarters on Tuesday.
“For quite some time, I was hoping that another credible challenger would put himself forward, but that simply has not happened,” said van Praag.
Besides Blatter, who is standing for his fifth consecutive term, the other challengers van Praag will likely face are FIFA vice-president Ali bin Al Hussein of Jordan, former FIFA executive Jérôme Champagne of France, and former French international David Ginola.
Potential candidates must be nominated by five of the football governing body’s 209 member federations by the January 29 deadline to in order to be officially in the race.
FIFA’s presidential election is scheduled for May 29 in Zurich.
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