SEOUL: South Korea’s Chung Mong-joon will formally launch his bid to become president of world soccer’s scandal-hit governing body Fifa on Monday in France, the home of rival Michel Platini.
Chung, a former Fifa vice-president and fierce critic of outgoing president Sepp Blatter, told Reuters last month that he would enter the race and that he would make the announcement in Europe, what he called “the centre of world football”.
“Paris has been chosen as the venue for the announcement as it is the birthplace of Fifa and the campaign is focused on reviving the original spirit of football’s governing body,” Chung’s office told Reuters yesterday.
The 63-year-old billionaire scion of South Korea’s Hyundai industrial conglomerate is viewed as one of the favourites for the job but faces stiff competition from Frenchman Platini, the head of Europe’s governing body Uefa.
Candidacy
“On Monday, August 17 at 10am (local time) at the Shangri-La Hotel in Paris, Dr Chung Mong-joon, Fifa Honorary vice-president, will formally announce his candidacy for the upcoming Fifa presidential elections scheduled to take place on February 26, 2016,” a statement from his office said yesterday.
It added that Chung would also hold a news conference to “set out his vision and roadmap for reforming Fifa”.
Fifa’s corruption troubles came to a head in May when US prosecutors indicted nine soccer officials, most of whom had Fifa positions, and five marketing and broadcasting company executives over a range of alleged offences, including fraud, money-laundering and racketeering.
Fifa announced on Tuesday it had turned to the man who helped the International Olympic Committee out of their corruption crisis, appointing Swiss Francois Carrard as chairman of their reform committee.
Blatter was re-elected for a fifth term as Fifa president on May 29, but four days later said he would lay down his mandate amid the world crisis in the body’s history. He will stay on until the election on February 26.
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