LAHORE – Faisal Saleh Hayat has become the first ever Pakistani to have been elected to the executive committee of the Asian Football Confederation. The 24th Congress of AFC held at Doha Qatar Thursday confirmed Mohamed Bin Hammam as the AFC President for a third term after he was elected unopposed.
Bin Hammam, who became AFC President in 2002, was the only candidate in the election and his victory was confirmed by acclamation from the delegates representing the AFC’s 46 Member Association. Bin Hammam’s final term as AFC President will run from 2011 to 2015. Twelve members were voted into the AFC Executive Committee during the 24th AFC Congress. Each of the four regional zones delivered three members. Faisal, along with Ali Azim (Maldives) and Praful Patel (India), garnered enough votes to take the three places on the Executive Committee from the sub-continent. Azim had 27 votes, Patel 26 and Makhdoom 24.
“It’s a great honour for Pakistan because it is for the first time that an official of the PFF has been elected to such a level,” said a PFF official.
Meanwhile, Jordan’s Prince Ali bin Al Hussein stunned powerful South Korean Chung Mong-Joon by unseating him as a FIFA vice-president. Chung, the controlling shareholder in industrial giant Hyundai Heavy Industries, a major FIFA sponsor, had been in the job since 1994 and was widely expected to retain the role. But in a vote of the Asian Football Confederation’s 45 eligible members at their Congress in Doha, the prince won 25-20. It was a big upset with rumours flying that Chung, 59, was to launch a campaign to unseat Sepp Blatter as FIFA president later in the year, someone he has previously feuded with.
Now that he is no longer among the FIFA hierachy, he cannot run for the top job. The prince becomes the youngest member of the FIFA executive committee at the age of 35 after rallying Arab support behind him. The son of the late King Hussein and late Queen Alia, he has been president of his domestic football federation for a decade and holds the same role at the head of the increasingly-influential West Asian Football Federation.
