Prince Ali marks birthday

AMMAN — Friday marks the 47th birthday of HRH Prince Ali, who was born on December 23, 1975 to Their Majesties the late King Hussein and the late Queen Alia. 

Prince Ali was educated in Jordan as well as in the United Kingdom and the United States, where he graduated from Salisbury School in Connecticut in 1993. He also attended the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst in the United Kingdom, and was commissioned as an officer in December of 1994 and awarded the Brunei Medal.

He holds the rank of Honorary Major General in the Jordanian Armed Forces and served as Commander of the King’s Special Security in Jordan’s Royal Guards from 1999 until 2008, when His Majesty King Abdullah entrusted Prince Ali with establishing and directing a National Centre for Security and Crisis Management for the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan.

Prince Ali became President of the Jordan Football Association in 1999.  Since then, he has worked to promote unity and develop the sport throughout the region, with a particular focus on youth football development and women's football.  In 2000, Prince Ali founded the West Asian Football Federation (WAFF), which includes at present 13 countries (Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Palestine, Syria, Qatar, United Arab Emirates, Yemen, Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman and Saudi Arabia). He continues to serve as President of the WAFF.

On the basis of his record of service and his commitment to unite and energise Asian football, Prince Ali was elected FIFA Vice President for Asia in 2011. He served as a member of the FIFA Executive Committee, the Executive Committee of the Asian Football Confederation (AFC), as well as Chairman of the Fair Play and Social Responsibility Committee and Deputy Chairman of the Football Committee at FIFA, and Chairman of the Social Responsibility Committee and Deputy Chairman of the Development Committee at AFC.

In January of 2012, Prince Ali used his FIFA salary to establish the Asian Football Development Project (AFDP), a non-profit youth commission headquartered in Amman, Jordan. Under his leadership, AFDP worked to develop football across Asia with a focus on youth development, empowering women, social responsibility and the protection and evolution of the game. AFDP has spearheaded the successful campaign to lift the ban on headscarves in football, as well as the successful proposal to increase the number of countries participating in the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) Champions League from 11 to 23. Following the success of AFDP, Prince Ali expanded its scope to become Association Football Development Programme (AFDP) Global in 2018, marking a new phase in Prince Ali’s work by using football to improve the lives of children and young people in communities in need across the world. During its first year of inception, AFDP Global launched a worldwide campaign to end abuse, harassment, and exploitation in women's football.

Prince Ali holds the Al Nahda decoration of the first degree as well as a number of foreign decorations, including the KCVO Knight commander of the Royal Victorian order, the French Légion d'honneur, and the Order of the Rising Sun of Japan. 

Prince Ali serves as chairman of Jordan's Royal Film Commission.

Prince Ali married Algerian-born Rym Brahimi, a former CNN journalist and daughter of the Algerian diplomat Lakhdar Brahimi, a former United Nations Special Representative for Afghanistan. They have two children, Princess Jalila bint Ali and Prince Abdullah bin Ali.