FIFA’s executive committee is to discuss postponing the presidential election at an emergency meeting, following the crisis that has struck the world governing body.
Several FIFA Exco members including England’s David Gill, Germany’s Wolfgang Niersbach and Belgium’s Michel D’Hooghe called for an emergency meeting to take place, and their request has been granted with a discussion to be held in Zurich on October 20.
The calls for the emergency meeting came after Sepp Blatter and Michel Platini were both provisionally banned for 90 days by FIFA’s ethics committee.
It is understood the presidential election, due to be held on February 26, will be top of the agenda. It is also likely to be raised at a meeting of UEFA’s 54 member associations which has been called for next Thursday in Nyon, Switzerland.
UEFA president Platini filed his nomination papers to run for the presidency just hours before his suspension and postponing the election would help his cause.
D’Hooghe, the longest-serving member of the FIFA ExCo, told Press Association Sport: “I am one of the members asking for an emergency meeting of the FIFA ExCo.
“At the moment I have no information about an eventual postponing of the election but perhaps this point could be discussed there.”
The deadline for nominations for candidates for the FIFA presidency is due to end on October 26.
Prince Ali Bin Al Hussein of Jordan is also planning to run, and it is understood Asian football chief Sheikh Salman Bin Ebrahim Al Khalifa from Bahrain is pondering whether to run himself, as is Kuwait’s Sheikh Ahmad Al Fahad Al Sabah, another FIFA ExCo member.
Platini has insisted he is determined to maintain his challenge for the FIFA presidency but the ethics committee provisional ban stands in his way – and he will also have to pass an ethics committee integrity check.
