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FIFA presidential candidate Prince Ali Bin Al Hussein will launch a 10-year programme to restore confidence in football’s “secretive” world governing body if elected. The Jordanian prince last week announced he would run for football’s top job and is in campaign mode to drum up support to unseat incumbent Sepp Blatter who is bidding for a fifth consecutive term. “I believe we should be totally transparent,” the BBC on Saturday quoted Prince Ali as saying. “I will look to a 10-year programme for the organisation, where everyone is a part of it and ourselves as the executive committee will implement it. “In the coming months, I will be looking to sit down and talk to all our member associations and listen to them. “I’m not coming in to dictate. I have my ideas and progress I want to implement, but I have to hear back from my colleagues.”

The 39-year-old prince’s decision to run has breathed new life into the presidential run-off but he faces an uphill battle to beat Swiss Blatter in the May election. Frenchman Jerome Champagne is also standing. A member of FIFA’s powerful executive committee and a vice-president of the Asian Football Confederation, Prince Ali attended an AFC meeting in Melbourne on Friday but senior officials there declined to back his candidacy, saying the bloc was unanimously behind Blatter. — Reuters.