Sports

MANCHESTER, England — HRH Prince Ali is still considering whether to run again for FIFA president, less than four months after losing to Sepp Blatter in the previous election.

The prince surprisingly denied Blatter a majority in the first round of voting in May but stepped aside before the second round. Blatter, though, announced his plans to quit four days later as separate US and Swiss criminal inquiries into football corruption escalated.

The deadline for Prince Ali and other candidates to gain the five required nominations from federations to stand in the February election is October 26.

“I am talking to national associations and listening to their opinions,” the prince told the SoccerEx conference in Manchester on Monday. “Right now we need a candidate who is forward thinking, with new ideas who is not tainted by the past... if the election is done correctly, cleanly and properly, I believe I can win.”

The former FIFA vice president said favourite Michel Platini is the wrong person for the job, given that the UEFA president helped Blatter first get elected in 1998. The prince is turning on Platini despite the former France great being his key supporter before the May election.

“FIFA is in a crisis right now and we need a new beginning,” the prince said. “Michel Platini’s introduction into football governance was as a protege of Sepp Blatter, that’s a reality.”

The prince said FIFA requires a candidate who “really believes in reform and true transparency, not as a slogan because that is very fashionable right now”.

Expanding on what transparency should look like at FIFA headquarters in Zurich, the prince told delegates: “You take the locks off the doors and open the windows. There is no need for secrecy.”

Blatter is entering the final months of his curtailed fifth term and the prince said the 79-year-old president has some responsibility for the current corruption crisis despite not being directly implicated.

“He should have stepped down a while ago if he had the best interests of football,” the prince said.

Fourteen officials have been indicted by US authorities as part of a wide-ranging investigation into bribery and financial wrongdoing, including some of Prince Ali’s former FIFA executive committee colleagues.

AMMAN  — Jordan plays Bangladesh on Tuesday in their third Group B qualifier of the 2018 World Cup in Russia doubling as part of the qualification for the 2019 Asian Cup.

Jordan, FIFA ranked 91, hopes to come out a winner in its away match against the 173rd ranked host, after it dropped to second in the group following a disappointing 0-0 draw against 155 ranked Kyrgyzstan as Australia took the group lead after they beat Bangladesh 5-0.

So far, Jordan beat Tajikistan 3-1, Bangladesh held Tajikistan 1-1 after they lost to Kyrgyzstan 3-1 and Australia beat Kyrgyzstan 2-1.

Observers have criticised the Jordan Football Association (JFA) on the team’s inconsistent training and late regrouping after the line-up appeared below par and lost many chances against 155th ranked Kyrgyzstan in the home match. 

The local media held the JFA and the team’s coach, Belgian Paul Put, accountable and pointed out to the “lack of will” of players and dwindling number of fans attending the match. It is vital for Jordan to come out with a big win ahead of the October 8 match against Australia as 40 teams are playing home and away in a round-robin format in the current second qualifying round which runs until March 2016. 

AMMAN — While it’s been an action packed week for tennis players of all ages in Amman, fans have a date with top players who will compete for the first time ever at the 2015 Lexus Tennis Festival on September 10-11 at The Tennis Academy (TTA) Amman. 

TTA announced that Finnish tennis star Jarkko Nieminen, and Tunisian tennis champion, Malek Jaziri, will compete in both doubles and singles matches, and will join legendary French star and multiple Grand Slam champion Mary Pierce, for two days of great tennis and family fun.

Former World No. 13, Nieminen is Finland’s most celebrated tennis star. Throughout his career, he won two ATP singles titles and three doubles titles. He reached the quarter-finals of the 2005 US Open, the 2006 Wimbledon Championships and the 2008 Australian Open.

He represented Finland in three separate Olympic games between 2004 and 2012 and he is the first and only Finnish player to have an ATP singles title.

Better known as “Jazz”, Jaziri has competed in all four Grand Slam events in his career. In 2015, he reached the Round 3 of the Australian Open and came close to beating the legendary Roger Federer in a tight three-set match at the Dubai Open.

Jaziri is the first male Tunisian player to reach the semifinals of an ATP event at the 2012 Kremlin Cup in Moscow.

On September 10, Nieminen and Jaziri will partner with two top Jordanian players for a doubles exhibition match. On Friday September 11, Nieminen will go head to head with Jaziri in the final exhibition match, the first time ever for these two tennis champions to meet on court.

OVIEDO, Spain — Spain coach Vicente del Bosque has given strong backing to Diego Costa even after the Chelsea forward drew another blank in Saturday’s Euro 2016 qualifying victory at home to Slovakia.

Holders Spain leapfrogged the Eastern Europeans to the top of Group C thanks to a 2-0 success in Oviedo but Costa again failed to score and has netted just one goal in eight appearances since opting last year to play for La Roja instead of his native Brazil.

The 26-year-old did win a penalty, converted by Andres Iniesta after Jordi Alba’s early header, but otherwise struggled to make any impact on Slovakia’s well-drilled defence before making way for Paco Alcacer 15 minutes from time.

“Of course I would like him to score but he did some good work,” Del Bosque told a news conference.

LONDON — England’s early qualification for next year’s Euro 2016 finals in France has given manager Roy Hodgson the rare luxury of being able to experiment with his selections well ahead of the tournament kicking off.

England’s 6-0 win over San Marino on Saturday maintained their perfect record in Group E with seven wins out of seven and they became the first country to take their place alongside the French hosts in the expanded 24-team finals.

It was the earliest England have ever qualified for any major tournament apart from when they hosted the World Cup in 1966 and the European championship in 1996, and skipper Wayne Rooney now wants them to win every match in their qualifying group for the first time.

With a home game to come against Switzerland on Tuesday followed by October’s double-header against Estonia at Wembley before signing off with a visit to Lithuania, England could well make it 10 wins out of 10 and preserve their long unbeaten run in both World Cup and Euro qualifiers which dates back 26 matches to a 1-0 loss to Ukraine in October 2009.

Hodgson told the BBC: “I’m not sure early qualification gives us any particular advantage because we are going to take a lot of time to plan and improve anyway.

“What it could do is give me the opportunity for experimentation because we did not get that ahead of the World Cup when we had to win our last two qualifiers to get to Brazil.”

Although England failed to get out of the group stage in the World Cup last year, they are now unbeaten in their last 12 internationals.

They were always likely to emerge unscathed from a Euro qualifying group against the likes of San Marino, Estonia, Lithuania, Slovenia and Switzerland, but younger players have impressed Hodgson during the course of the campaign.

Liverpool defender Nathaniel Clyne, 24, looks like being England’s best right-back since Gary Neville while Jonjo Shelvey, 23, has played his way back into the squad after some fine performances for Swansea.

Everton defender John Stones and his club mate Ross Barkley, also 21, who scored his first goal for England against San Marino and now has 14 caps, look set for long international careers.

Young forwards like Harry Kane, 22, of Tottenham Hotspur, and Raheem Sterling, 20, of Manchester City, also provide options for Hodgson in attack.

Rooney, meanwhile, may not have made a blistering start to the season with Manchester United, but the skipper, who will be 30 next month, is still a key figure as far as Hodgson is concerned.

Rooney equalled Bobby Charlton’s all-time England record of 49 goals against San Marino before Hodgson swapped him for Kane with nearly an hour played.

Some have criticised Hodgson for taking him off when the record was there to be broken, but the manager explained: “The substitution was planned with a view to Tuesday night against Switzerland.

“It would be nice if Wayne got his 50th goal against Switzerland, but one thing for certain is that he will get it.

Rooney added: “I’m delighted to have equalled the record, now I’d like to break it, but more importantly I hope we can make it 10 wins out of 10.”

AMMAN — Jordan’s national football team left to Bangladesh for its third Group B qualifier of the 2018 World Cup in Russia doubling as part of the qualification for 2019 Asian Cup. 

Jordan had a disappointing 0-0 draw against Kyrgyzstan in which the line-up appeared below par and goalie Amer Shafie was the man of the match as his teammates lost chance after chance and failed to score a vital win over their 155th ranked opponents.

This week, Australia took the group lead from Jordan after they beat Bangladesh 5-0. Jordan beat Tajikistan 3-1 in their opening qualifier, Bangladesh held Tajikistan 1-1 after they lost to Kyrgyzstan 3-1 and Australia beat Kyrgyzstan 2-1. 

Following the qualifier against Bangladesh on September 8, Jordan will play Australia on October 8. Forty teams are playing home and away in a round-robin format in the current second qualifying round which runs until March 2016. 

It has been an inconsistent year for Jordan’s line-up which was led by Briton Ray Wilkins under whom the team failed to advance past the group of the 2015 Asian Football Confederation (AFC) Asian Cup. Ahmad Abdul Qader took over in the transitional phase under whom the team played the first qualifier. Now Belgian Paul Put has taken over since July but Jordan had not regrouped much since June when they hosted Trinidad & Tobago and won 3-0 in a friendly. 

In its last friendly, Jordan held the U-23 team 0-0 and beat them 3-0. This year, Jordan also played four friendlies holding Kuwait 2-2, Lebanon 0-0, losing 2-1 to Saudi Arabia and 1-0 to Syria. 

In the latest FIFA World Rankings, Group B teams are led by Australia at (61) followed by Jordan who went up a spot to 91, Kyrgyzstan (155), Tajikistan (158) and Bangladesh (173).

Argentina took over top spot from Germany atop the 10 leading teams, followed by Belgium, Germany, Columbia, Brazil, Portugal, Romania, Chile, Wales and England.

Jordan is 9th among Asian teams trailing Iran (40), South Korea (57), Japan (58), Australia (61), the UAE (70), Uzbekistan (76), Iraq (82) and China (84). 

Jordan had the most memorable World Cup qualifying journey in 2013 when they lost a possible chance to play at the World Cup for the first time when they advanced to play then World’s 6th ranked Uruguay in an intercontinental qualifying tie for a place in the 2014 World Cup. They lost the home game 5-0 and held the former World Cup champs 0-0 in the away match. Jordan had never reached that far in World Cup qualifying since taking part in the qualifiers since 1985. Round 3 had been the furthest Jordan reached in the past seven times in the qualifiers.

In the Asian Cup, Jordan reached the championship three times since first taking part in qualifiers in 1972: the pinnacle was at the 13th Asian Cup, when they lost to Japan in the quarter-finals and jumped to the best ever FIFA Ranking of 37th in August 2004. In 2011 Jordan again reached the quarter-finals.

Group B standings

AMMAN — The 2015 Lexus Tennis Festival kicked off in Amman on Friday with 130 players participating in 14 tournaments of all categories and age groups.

The festival is organised by the Tennis Academy Amman. In addition to the local tournaments, the festival will feature an exhibition match between former world number 13 Jarkko Nieminen and Tunisian tennis star Malek Jaziri, as well as a Family Tennis Day with France’s multiple Grand Slam champion Mary Pierce. This is the first time that Jordan hosts tennis stars of this calibre.

SEOUL — South Korean FIFA presidential candidate Chung Mong-joon has accused the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) of sending unsolicited letters to its members urging them to support his rival Michel Platini at next year’s election.

In a statement released on Thursday and read out at a news conference in Seoul, Chung said the letters asked members to sign a form pledging their support for Platini, the head of European football’s governing body UEFA.

Chung said the letters were in breach of FIFA’s election guidelines and threatened to “undermine the fairness” of the poll, which will be held on February 26, 2016, to decide the successor to outgoing incumbent Sepp Blatter.

“Sheikh Salman, president of the Asian Football Confederation [AFC], has publicly supported Michel Platini, president of the UEFA,” the statement said.

“We have learned that the AFC has sent unsolicited letters to almost every AFC member association. Most of the AFC member countries including China, Japan, Mongolia, India and Singapore received this letter. South Korea and Jordan, however, did not.”

Chung, the 63-year-old billionaire scion of South Korea’s Hyundai industrial conglomerate, formally announced last month that he was running for the FIFA presidency. HRH Prince Ali is also among the potential candidates.

Platini has long been the bookmakers’ favourite to succeed Blatter and Sheikh Salman has publicly declared his support for the Frenchman.

There was no immediate response from the AFC on Thursday relating to Chung’s statement about the letters.

Chung, who has been a vocal critic of both Blatter and Platini, said a similar letter was circulated among African members but the Confederation of African Football (CAF) intervened and “deemed its behaviour highly improper and took measures to rectify the situation”.

Although there has never been an Asian or African FIFA president, the two regions account for almost half the 209 members that will decide the next boss of football’s embattled world governing body, with Asia holding 46 votes and Africa 54.

“Given that the confederations exercise tremendous influence over its member associations in organising football tournaments and through administrative oversight, it is clear that the fairness of the FIFA presidential election has been seriously compromised,” Chung said.

“According to FIFA Statutes, only the member associations possess the right to propose candidates for the office of FIFA president, and each member should make its decision independently and with no influence from third parties.”

Chung said he had notified the FIFA Ad hoc Electoral Committee and the FIFA Ethics Committee about the letters and asked for an investigation.

“We also requested the Ad hoc Electoral Committee to promptly institute remedies sufficient to address the prejudice and harm already sustained by other potential candidates,” Chung said.

“This includes the nullification of any ‘support’ for the candidature of Mr Platini received through the form letters sent by the AFC, the senior official of CAF and/or any other confederation.”

LONDON — There was the usual frenzy of last-minute deals as the Premier League brought the curtain down on another bumper European transfer window in which Manchester City again flexed their financial muscle as the continent’s top spenders.

With Europe’s other major countries closing for transfer business on Monday, the English top flight hogged the limelight for an extra day, with City’s rivals Manchester United completing the biggest and most eyebrow-raising late deal.

The capture of Anthony Martial from Monaco for £36 million ($55.12 million), labelled a panic-buy by sections of the British media, ensured Premier League clubs racked up a record spend of more than £860 million.

That comfortably surpassed last season’s record by more than £25 million and reinforced the competition’s status as the leading league in terms of transfer spending in the window.

City, who have won their first four league games this season, led the way with an outlay of £150 million, including the £50 million capture of midfielder Kevin De Bruyne from Wolfsburg, and forward Raheem Sterling from Liverpool in a deal that could reach £49 million.

City were followed in the spending stakes by United who took their outlay past £100 million with Tuesday’s deal for 19-year-old French striker Martial, who followed Memphis Depay, Morgan Schneiderlin and Bastian Schweinsteiger into Old Trafford.

Liverpool were not far behind in the spending stakes, splashing out almost £80 million, mainly on Christian Benteke from Aston Villa for £32.5 million and Hoffenheim’s Roberto Firmino for £28.5, offset by Sterling’s move to City.

English domination

Fuelled by the money from the Premier League’s increasingly lucrative broadcast deals, English clubs made six of the biggest seven signings in the window.

Only Qatari-backed Paris St Germain punctuated the list of the biggest deals with the 63 million euros ($71.26 million) signing of Argentina winger Angel Di Maria from Manchester United.

Some of Europe’s traditional powerhouses had quieter windows than many might have expected.

Arturo Vidal’s 37 million euros move to Bayern Munich from Juventus was the high point of the Bundesliga champions’ spending while there was no “galactico” signing for Real Madrid, seeking to wrestle the La Liga crown back from Barcelona.

Madrid, under new coach Rafa Benitez, brought in Croatia midfielder Mateo Kovacic from Inter Milan for 30 million euros in their biggest deal but failed to sign Manchester United’s Spain goalkeeper David De Gea before the window slammed shut.

That failure, with the two clubs blaming each other for the administrative snarl up, will have likely handed a psychological fillip to Real’s bitter rivals Barcelona.

The Catalan club managed to pull off deals for attacking Turkey midfielder Arda Turan from Atletico Madrid and winger Spaniard Aleix Vidal from Sevilla despite being prevented from registering new players until January, meaning this pair will have to kick their heels for some months.

In Italy, champions Juventus replaced the outgoing Carlos Tevez with another Argentine following the capture of forward Paulo Dybala from Palermo for 32 million euros.

Some restraint

Yet as cash flowed freely between clubs there was also some restraint shown by some of Europe’s biggest teams.

Chelsea, traditionally among the game’s biggest spenders, tightened the purse strings with their biggest outlay being on Spanish forward Pedro from Barcelona for 30 million euros.

Having missed out on defensive target John Stones from Everton, the English champions recouped the vast majority of their transfer outlay through sales and loan fees.

Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger is renowned for keeping his powder dry but, after spending big on Mesut Ozil and Alexis Sanchez in the last two summer windows, his only spending was the £10 million he paid for Chelsea keeper Petr Cech.

AMMAN  — Jordan plays Kyrgyzstan on Thursday resuming Group B qualifiers for the 2018 World Cup in Russia doubling as part of the qualification for 2019 Asian Cup as well.

The 7:00pm match was moved to Amman International Stadium after Al Hassan Stadium pitch suffered damage and was ruled unfit to host the qualifier.

Jordan leads the group standings after they beat Tajikistan 3-1 in their opening qualifier in June and since then has not regrouped much apart from hosting Trinidad & Tobago and winning 3-0 in a friendly.

In the latest FIFA World Rankings, Australia is the highest ranked team in Group B at 61, followed by Jordan (92), Kyrgyzstan (156) Tajikistan (158) and Bangladesh (170).

Jordan will next play an away qualifier in Bangladesh on September 8 and Australia on October 8. 

So far, Bangladesh held Tajikistan 1-1 after they lost to Kyrgyzstan 3-1 and Australia beat Kyrgyzstan 2-1. Forty teams are playing home and away in a round-robin format in the current second qualifying round which runs until March 2016.

It has been an inconsistent year for Jordan’s line-up which was led by Briton Ray Wilkins under whom the team failed to advance past the group of the 2015 Asian Football Confederation (AFC) Asian Cup. Ahmad Abdul Qader took over in the transitional phase under whom the team played the first qualifier. However, the Jordan Football Association contracted Belgian Paul Put in July and the team did not regroup for the past two months, until the surprise appointment of assistant coach Abdullah Abu Zameh to replace Abdul Qader raised concerns of the choice of players and preparedness amid the delayed arrival of the coach until only last week.

In its last friendly, Jordan held the U-23 team 0-0 and beat them 3-0. This year, Jordan also played four friendlies holding Kuwait 2-2, Lebanon 0-0, losing 2-1 to Saudi Arabia and 1-0 to Syria. 

Jordan had the most memorable World Cup qualifying journey in 2013 when it lost a possible chance to play at the World Cup for the first time when it advanced to play then World’s 6th ranked Uruguay in an intercontinental qualifying tie for a place in the 2014 World Cup. It lost the home game 5-0 and held the former World Cup champs 0-0 in the away match. Jordan had never reached that far in World Cup qualifying since taking part in the qualifiers as of 1985. Round 3 had been the furthest Jordan reached in the past seven  times in the qualifiers.

In the Asian Cup, Jordan reached the championship three times since first taking part in qualifiers in 1972: the pinnacle was at the 13th Asian Cup, when they lost to Japan in the quarter-finals and jumped to the best ever FIFA rank of 37th in August 2004. In 2011, Jordan again reached the quarter-finals.