GENEVA | With Michel Platini expected to be ruled out of the FIFA presidential election because of his suspension, UEFA made a surprising last-minute decision Monday to throw its support behind the Frenchman’s right-hand man.
Gianni Infantino, the general secretary under Platini for the last six years, was given the go-ahead by an emergency UEFA executive committee meeting held via video conference to join a growing field of up to seven contenders.
On a deadline day full of late tactical changes, Asian soccer confederation president Sheikh Salman bin Ibrahim Al Khalifa of Bahrain joined the field and Liberian soccer federation president Musa Bility also entered the race.
Bility’s candidacy to replace Sepp Blatter in the Feb. 26 election comes two months after his campaign seemed over when African soccer leaders refused to support him.
“I don’t want to go into any race that I cannot win,” Bility told The Associated Press, saying more than 25 of the 54 African voting federations offered to nominate him.
Bility joined the race one day after longtime African soccer confederation president Issa Hayatou — the interim FIFA president while Blatter is suspended — met with Sheikh Salman in Cairo.
Sheikh Salman previously supported Platini’s campaign but decided to seek the top job himself after the UEFA president was suspended for 90 days in a FIFA ethics investigation. Blatter was suspended as part of the same investigation.
Infantino, who was already viewed as a contender to be appointed FIFA secretary general, gives UEFA another option if FIFA’s election committee bars Platini as a candidate. His candidacy also could strengthen a Europe-Asia alliance that seemed decisive earlier in the campaign.
UEFA said in a statement that the Swiss lawyer “has our full support in his campaign to become FIFA president.”
“He is in the process of submitting the required nominations and will issue a statement ?on his candidacy later today,” the European soccer body said.
Other probable candidates vying for the FIFA job include Prince Ali bin al-Hussein of Jordan, South African tycoon Tokyo Sexwale, former FIFA official Jerome Champagne and David Nakhid, a former player from Trinidad and Tobago.
Sheikh Salman’s entry was already being criticized by rights groups who urged FIFA’s election committee to reject him as a candidate when it conducts integrity checks.
Questions have been raised over whether Sheikh Salman adequately protected Bahrain national team players after some took part in pro-democracy protests in 2011. Some players say they were tortured while detained by government forces when the sheikh was head of the Bahrain Football Association.
AP Sports Writer Rob Harris in Manchester, England, contributed to this report.