World Soccer Leaders Electing New FIFA President – ABC News

Soccer leaders are meeting Friday to elect a new FIFA president, with Asian confederation head Sheikh Salman of Bahrain the favorite to succeed Sepp Blatter.

Voting was scheduled to begin at about 1300 GMT following speeches by the five candidates.

No candidate is expected to win in the first round, where 138 votes from the 207 eligible voters are needed for victory.

Sheikh Salman, backed by most voters in Asia and Africa, would likely have the momentum for victory if he gets at least 104 votes. That would be a winning simple majority in the second round.

Gianni Infantino of Switzerland, the general secretary of European governing body UEFA, is expected to be the Bahraini royal’s main rival.

The other candidates are: Prince Ali of Jordan, who conceded to Blatter after a first-round vote last year; former FIFA official Jerome Champagne of France; and Tokyo Sexwale, a South African businessman and former anti-apartheid activist.

Blatter was re-elected for a fifth term in May but, amid escalating corruption scandals, bowed to pressure four days later and announced he would resign. Blatter was subsequently banned for six years for financial mismanagement and was absent Friday after 40 years as a fixture at FIFA meetings.

Before electing FIFA’s first new president since 1998, the 207 federations will be asked to approve reforms intended to prevent further corruption and bribery scandals.

Those include preventing presidents from serving more than three four-year terms, reducing their powers and guaranteeing more independent oversight for FIFA’s decision-making and spending.

Still, the new era FIFA hopes for will not easily escape the fallout from Blatter’s scandal-hit leadership.

“We will set up a FIFA that is more transparent,” interim president Issa Hayatou of Cameroon said in a speech. “It will win back the respect of everybody throughout the world.”

Sheikh Salman has been the most criticized and scrutinized candidate through the four-month campaign.

The 50-year-old former Bahrain soccer federation president has strongly denied claims that, after Arab Spring protests in 2011, he helped identify national team players to be detained. They later alleged abuse and torture by government security forces.

The winner of Friday’s vote will become the ninth elected president in FIFA’s 112-year history.

The new president will inherit financial problems provoked by the corruption crisis, and ailing staff morale, detailed by acting secretary general Markus Kattner.

“We are currently $550 million behind our goals,” Kattner said, reminding of a conservative budget target of $5 billion revenue from the 2018 World Cup in Russia. “(There is) general uncertainty that is affecting morale of the FIFA team.”

FIFA has not signed any new World Cup sponsors since the 2014 tournament in Brazil, and has acknowledged that potential deals were on hold until after the election.

FIFA will publish its 2015 financial report next month. It is expected to show a loss of at least $100 million, dropping cash reserves to $1.4 billion.