World football governing body FIFA voted on Friday to elect its new chief — with incumbent Sepp Blatter seeking a fifth term challenged by Jordanian heavyweight Prince Ali bin al-Hussein.
The voting took place under the lengthening shadow of a corruption scandal that has already implicated nine senior officials. Both the candidates promised to “clean up the mess” of the scandal.
The 65th FIFA Congress was held here with 209 member associations in attendance. Each of FIFA’s 209 member associations gets one vote.
Each individual member went up to one of the two voting booths as the names were called up in alphabetical order.
In the first round, a candidate needs to get two-thirds of the vote to be declared the winner. If the vote is closer than that, a second round of voting is held, with a simple majority enough to secure victory.
FIFA secretary general Jerome Valcke, assisted by a number of scrutinisers, will control the voting.
Blatter has been at the FIFA helm since 1998.
