Sports

AMMAN — Triathlete Lawrence Fanous has closed the gap on his Asian rivals as he bids to secure a spot for the 2016 Rio Olympic Games, according to the Jordan Olympic Committee News Service.

The 30-year-old has stepped up his qualification bid through a series of events through Asia and, at the weekend, he finished 32nd at the ITU Tongyeong World Cup race, in Korea. It could have been a lot better for Lawrence with the England-based athlete sitting in the top 20 entering the final lap of the last leg on foot.

But despite dropping back he was happy with his race heading into Hong Kong this weekend. “I felt I deserved more. I’ll just have to make it all come together next week at the Hong Kong Asian Cup,” Fanous said. Another good performance is crucial in Hong Kong as the two-time Arab champion needs to play catch up on his rivals sitting above him in the Olympic spot.

“At the moment South Korea sits in the Asian qualifying spot and I currently have China and Hong Kong in front of me but I am very capable of beating these guys and have done on a number of occasions before. “It is not easy but I am over the problems I have endured earlier this year and will give it my best shot to get Jordan to Rio,” said Fanous.

GENEVA — Seven men are in the running to replace Sepp Blatter as FIFA president, with Michel Platini’s candidature accepted but pending because of his suspension from football.

FIFA published the list of valid applications “proposed in due time and form” on Wednesday. It did not include former Trinidad and Tobago player David Nakhid, who did not have the five required nominations.

The seven candidates for the February 26 election are HRH Prince Ali, Platini, Gianni Infantino, Tokyo Sexwale, Musa Bility, Jerome Champagne and Sheikh Salman Bin Ibrahim Al Khalifa.

FIFA’s three-man election panel, led by audit committee chairman Domenico Scala, will announce next month which of the seven candidates have been officially accepted after integrity checks by the FIFA ethics committee.

Three of the candidates are from Europe, two are from Africa and two from Asia.

Platini, who was suspended for 90 days this month by the FIFA’s ethics committee, has been accepted pending the outcome of an investigation into financial wrongdoing.

“Given that Michel Platini is currently provisionally banned from taking part in any football-related activity, his candidature will not be processed by the ad hoc electoral committee as long as such ban is valid and in force,” FIFA said in a statement.

Platini was the favourite until he and Blatter were questioned by Swiss federal police on September 25 over a suspected “disloyal payment” from FIFA in 2011. The UEFA president got about $2 million approved by Blatter as uncontracted salary for work he did as a presidential adviser at least nine years earlier.

Platini denies wrongdoing and is appealing against the suspension. Blatter was also banned for 90 days.

Platini’s right-hand man at UEFA, general secretary Infantino, entered the FIFA contest on Monday.

Nakhid was considered an outsider in the contest but the one most likely to bring a player’s perspective to the job. And although he had the five required nominations, one of his backers broke election rules by also supporting another candidate.

AMMAN — Week 5 of the 64th Jordan Professional Football League kicks off on Thursday with leaders Wihdat playing all-time rivals Faisali in a much anticipated match.

Wihdat still hold a slight lead after they lost their first match and went down 1-0 to Hussein Irbid. They are followed by Shabab Urdun who made a big leap of four places to 2nd after a 3-0 drubbing of Faisali who slipped down six spots to 11th.

Sarih, who were held 2-2 with Asala, maintained third place and next play Shabab Urdun; Jazira, who held Ahli 0-0, next play Ramtha, who dropped to fifth after losing 1-0 to That Ras, who went up four spots to 6th.

Hussein, who also went up four spots, next play Baqa’a who held Kufrsoum 1-1, while Kufrsoum play Ahli, who are now 10th.

So far this season, Jordan Cup holders Faisali beat League titleholders Wihdat 1-0 to win the 33rd Super Cup. It was a much needed win for Faisali after a disappointing 7th place finish the League last season as runner-up and third places went to Jazira and Ramtha.  

Wihdat have been League champions for the past two consecutive years. Apart from conceding the Super Cup, they were knockout of the Jordan Cup as well this season.

League Standings  

(Last week’s position in parenthesis) 

AMMAN — The Jordan Olympic Committee (JOC) has signed its first annual partnership deal — with international manufacturer of bakery ingredients backaldrin: The Kornspitz Company, according to the JOC News Service.

This new partnership will help meet the nutritional needs of Jordan’s athletes and strengthen the JOC’s vision for sports to play a key part in the lives of all Jordanians.

The JOC and backaldrin will launch an exclusive campaign in 2016 ahead of the Rio 2016 Olympic and Paralympic Games.

The partnership is part of the JOC’s Living Sport Communications Plan to work with like-minded local and international partners to promote sport and healthy living among Jordanians by making the JOC, a more approachable and marketable organisation.

Through Living Sport, the JOC has launched a number of initiatives and projects including the launch of the official JOC children’s ambassador, Nash, a character based on Jordan’s national flower — the Black Iris, which has survived and thrived amidst the harsh conditions of Jordan’s deserts to become a popular young sporting icon.

GENEVA — Deadline day to enter the FIFA presidential election saw surprise entries and a potential eight-man line-up on Monday.

Among late tactical changes, two unexpected additions were Gianni Infantino — the right-hand man of suspended UEFA president Michel Platini, whose own entry will likely be barred — and Liberian football leader Musa Bility, whose campaign seemed hopelessly stalled in August.

The list of contenders to succeed Sepp Blatter leading the corruption-hit world football governing body grew longer than expected and will surely be cut before the February 26 ballot.

A further twist stopped the race reaching nine as a former FIFA secretary general, Michel Zen-Ruffinen, told The Associated Press he decided not to run despite getting the required nominations from five of the 209 member federations.

Just over one month ago, Platini was a strong front-runner in a small field with key backers in Asia and the Americas.

That changed September 25 when the former France great was implicated in a Swiss criminal investigation. Platini got a suspected “disloyal payment” of $2 million in backdated salary from FIFA funds got in 2011 with Blatter’s approval. Both are serving 90-day bans imposed by FIFA’s ethics committee pending a full investigation.

Platini’s bloc of support seemed sure to transfer to Asia’s football confederation president, Sheikh Salman Bin Ibrahim Al Khalifa.

The Bahraini royal family member duly filed his nomination papers Monday and is likely the current favourite, yet his bid has exposed himself and his home country to exposure for their human rights record.

Sheikh Salman’s entry has already been criticised by rights groups who urged FIFA’s election committee to reject him as a candidate when it oversees integrity checks in the next two weeks.

Questions have been raised over whether Sheikh Salman, as the Bahrain Football Association president in 2011, adequately protected national team players after some took part in pro-democracy protests. Some players say they were tortured while detained by government forces.

“Sheikh Salman played a key role in Bahrain’s retaliation against athlete-protesters,” the Bahrain Institute for Rights and Democracy and the Americans for Democracy and Human Rights in Bahrain said in a joint statement. “Throughout the government crackdown, he allegedly examined photographs of the protesters, identifying Bahraini athletes for the security forces.”

Sheikh Salman did not make a statement Monday. He previously challenged critics to present proof of wrongdoing, which he denies, and suggested that such questions have to do with politics and not football.

Still, Infantino’s late entry offers the Europe-Asia alliance an extra option if both Platini and Sheikh Salman are ruled ineligible as candidates.

UEFA agreed to its new strategy after an emergency executive committee meeting held via video conference.

“I am very proud of what we have achieved at UEFA and the way in which we conduct ourselves as an organisation,” said Infantino, a Swiss lawyer who has been Platini’s top administrator for six years. He was already viewed as a potential FIFA secretary general or UEFA presidential candidate.

Africa got a second contender when after Bility re-emerged two months since his campaign seemed over when African football leaders refused to support him.

“I don’t want to go into any race that I cannot win,” Bility told the AP, saying more than 25 of the 54 African voting federations offered to nominate him.

Bility joined the race one day after longtime African confederation President Issa Hayatou — the interim FIFA president, who has declined to publicly support Sexwale — met with Sheikh Salman in Cairo.

Other probable candidates vying for the FIFA job include HRH Prince Ali, South African tycoon Tokyo Sexwale, former FIFA official Jerome Champagne and David Nakhid, a former player from Trinidad and Tobago.

Prince Ali, a former FIFA vice president, cut ties with Platini after losing to Blatter in the election in May. That was held amid a crisis provoked by American and Swiss federal investigations of corruption which have forced Blatter to leave office early.

Sexwale, an Apartheid-era political prisoner, was appointed by Blatter to improve relations between the Israeli and Palestinian football bodies; Champagne, a former diplomat from France, was a senior FIFA official for 11 years under Blatter; Nakhid has career links to a Blatter aide.

They were not joined by Zen Ruffinen, who said he gained five nominations but lacked significant backing within a crowded field.

“Some of the candidates are very strong and it doesn’t make a lot of sense to go,” Zen Ruffinen said Monday. “I have hesitated until very late tonight.”

Later Monday, Champagne and Nakhid shared a platform at a sports conference dedicated to good governance, the two-yearly Play The Game event in Denmark.

“I am sure there will be a lot of sleaze,” Champagne predicted at a session examining the FIFA race. “It has started, believe me.”

The president of the Asian Football Confederation (AFC), Sheikh Salman Bin Ebrahim Al Khalifa of Bahrain, has formally entered the race to become FIFA president, the Bahrain News Agency reported on Sunday.

The agency said Sheikh Salman had submitted his paperwork to FIFA headquarters on Sunday, a day ahead of the deadline for candidates to deliver the nominations from five football associations.

The Bahraini, who is closely allied with Kuwaiti Sheikh Ahmad Al Fahad Al Sabah, one of the most powerful men in international sports politics and a key figure in the Olympic movement, had canvassed opinion from Asian football associations last week.

Sheikh Salman had initially backed Michel Platini, the UEFA president. But the Frenchman’s troubles, which originated with a 2011 payment of two million Swiss francs ($2.04 million) from Blatter’s FIFA for work done nine years earlier, have dramatically changed the electoral landscape.

Earlier this month, Platini was handed a 90-day provisional ban from football by FIFA’s ethics committee — a decision which has quickly led to his support dissipating.

Platini has appealed the ban and could yet be let back into the race for the February 26 vote if he is successful in overturning the judgement.

Sheikh Salman will face another member of Arab royalty in the election with HRH Prince Ali have already submitted his nominations.

On Saturday, South African former Apartheid-era political prisoner turned businessman Tokyo Sexwale announced he would be standing in the election after winning backing from the South African Football Association.

Former Trinidad and Tobago midfielder David Nakhid says he has submitted his papers to FIFA along with former FIFA deputy general secretary Jerome Champagne and Platini.

Zico, the former Brazilian World Cup player, has said he wants to stand but it is not known if he has been able to receive the necessary support.

FIFA has been rocked by the US Department of Justice’s decision on May 27 to indict 14 football officials and sports marketing executives in a corruption investigation.

Swiss authorities are also investigating FIFA while FIFA’s ethics committee has handed out several bans.

Korean Chung pulls out

Meanwhile, South Korea’s Chung Mong-joon on Monday pulled out of the race for the presidency of global football body FIFA due to a ban from the sport.

“Because of the ethics committee’s unjust sanctions, I will have to miss the October 26 deadline to file my candidacy,” Chung said in a statement on Monday.

“It is now time to officially withdraw my candidacy for the next FIFA president.”

LONDON — Bitter rivals Arsene Wenger and Jose Mourinho had wildly contrasting afternoons on Saturday as Arsenal went top of the Premier League and champions Chelsea lost again with their manager being sent off.

Wenger, once dubbed “a specialist in failure” by the Chelsea boss, punched the air in delight after Arsenal beat Everton 2-1 at a rain-lashed Emirates Stadium.

Mourinho, however, failed to show up at his post-match news conference after the Stamford Bridge club slumped to sixth from bottom, following a 2-1 defeat at London rivals West Ham United.

On another bleak day for Chelsea they finished with 10 men after having Serbia midfielder Nemanja Matic sent off. The mood of the visitors was not helped at a wet Upton Park when Cesc Fabregas had a first-half goal harshly disallowed for offside.

Arsenal won their fourth successive league match after headers from Olivier Giroud and Laurent Koscielny in a three-minute spell in the first half helped them go top for the first time since February 2014.

They have 22 points from 10 games and will stay at the summit until at least Sunday when Manchester City, second on 21, play Manchester United, fourth on 19, at Old Trafford.

Chelsea’s fifth league defeat of the season meant West Ham finished the day in third place on 20 points, after a venemous first-half shot into the bottom corner from Mauro Zarate and a late header from substitute Andy Carroll gave them victory.

Gary Cahill briefly drew Chelsea level with a close-range shot in the 56th minute after referee Jon Moss had ordered Mourinho to the stands when the outspoken Portuguese had approached him at halftime.

“The mood in the dressing room is not great, like you’d imagine when you lose games,” Cahill told the BBC. “The lads are devastated.

“You’re left scratching your head sometimes. In the first half the Fabregas goal could have been given and we had the goal that was nearly over the line. That sums up the way we’re going.”

Cahill was referring to a first-half header from Kurt Zouma that went within millimetres of a goal.

Chelsea’s defeat summed up Mourinho’s season.

Controversial incidents

Since falling out with former first team doctor Eva Carneiro on the opening day, he has been involved in several other controversial incidents.

Last week Mourinho was fined £50,000 ($76,560) by the FA for comments he made about referees when Chelsea lost at home to Southampton on October 3.

Mourinho, who sat in the directors’ box until eight minutes from time at Upton Park, is now facing another FA fine for not speaking to the media and a fresh punishment for being sent from the dugout.

While the Portuguese was a picture of abject misery, Wenger ended the day with a broad grin.

The Frenchman was delighted his team won again following their 2-0 victory over Bayern Munich in the Champions League on Tuesday.

“When you win such a big game like Tuesday night and you can win again straight after, it tells you a lot about the mentality of your team,” said Wenger.

Everton’s Romelu Lukaku hit the bar and former England midfielder Gareth Barry was shown a late red card but Arsenal were good value for their win.

Ross Barkley was on target for Everton in the 44th minute.

Elsewhere, Leicester City beat Crystal Palace 1-0 to stay fifth with England striker Jamie Vardy scoring for the seventh successive league match.

Swansea City won 2-1 at struggling Aston Villa with goals from Gylfi Sigurdsson and Andre Ayew while West Bromwich Albion triumphed 1-0 at Norwich City thanks to Salomon Rondon’s effort.

Troy Deeney and Almen Abdi struck in Watford’s 2-0 victory at Stoke City.

AMMAN — The Jordan Football Association (JFA) will soon regroup national team coaching staff after most teams were eliminated from their receptive Asian qualifiers.

After the U-16 boys and women’s teams were eliminated last month, both the U-23 and U-19 followed suit echoing earlier concerns by observers.

Despite a technical issue causing its elimination from the 1st West Asian Championship, the JFA on Saturday expressed confidence in the U-23 team’s staff and announced coach Jamal Abu Abed would stay and prepare for the upcoming agenda.

The team will shift focus to the 2nd AFC U-23 Championship which also serves as Asia’s qualifying tournament for the Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro. Jordan got a tough draw at the 16-team competition set for Qatar January 12-30, 2016 where they will play in Group D next to Australia, the UAE and Vietnam. The Kingdom qualified to the U-23 Championship after it topped Group B qualifiers in Amman as Jordan held Kuwait 3-3, beat Kyrgyzstan 4-0 and Pakistan 5-0 to advance.

In the inaugural edition, the U-23 team beat South Korea to take bronze at the AFC U-22 Championship (now renamed the AFC U-23 Championship) as Iraq beat Saudi Arabia to take the title.

Misinterpretation of regulations cost the team qualification on points at the 1st West Asian Championship. After defeating Yemen 3-1, losing 2-1 to Qatar, assuming Palestine’s results were scrapped after it was eliminated from the competition, the team’s reserves played as Jordan lost 1-0 to Palestine and ended up fourth in the group, allowing Yemen, the only team it beat, to advance as best second placed team.

The team had a modest preparation period hampered with no training camps and no serious friendlies. In 2014, the U-23 squad had similar circumstances when it represented Jordan at the Asian Games. It made to the quarter-finals despite a bumpy preparation period amid the busy agenda of the national team as well as local clubs. 

Meanwhile, the U-19 team, which previously reached the FIFA Youth World Cup in Canada in 2007, was eliminated from the AFC U-19 qualifiers after it lost 2-1 to Kuwait, 3-0 to Iran and beat Nepal 3-0. Only group winners and best second-placed team booked a slot to the AFC U-19 Championship set for Bahrain in 2016.  The top-four sides of the U-19 Championship advance to the FIFA U-20 World Cup.

The Kingdom has previously reached the AFC U-19 Championship four times. It exited the group stages in 2008 and 2010 and reached the quarters in 2012. Jordan failed to qualify in 2014 when it exited Group B qualifiers in Amman. 

On the other hand, as Jordan starts the countdown to host the U-17 Women’s World Cup kicking off September 30, 2016, the JFA is trying to secure more friendlies including a training camp in Germany and playing Egypt and Uzbekistan. Jordan beat Egypt 2-1 and 4-1 before leaving to Uzbekistan for a training camp and friendlies currently under way. 

Women’s teams have been competing in all age divisions in the Asian zone. In 2014, the U-19 team was eliminated from Group A qualifiers for the 2015 AFC U-19 Women’s Championship after qualifying as the only Arab team in 2007. The U-16 girls team also failed to qualify to the 2015 AFC U-16 Women’s Championship after qualifying in 2013. 

Earlier this year, the women’s national team concluded Group A Round 2 at the 2015–16 AFC Women’s Olympic Qualifying Tournament with a winless record and only one goal. Jordan lost 2-1 to Vietnam, 1-0 to Thailand, 3-0 to Taiwan and 2-0 to Myanmar. Similarly, the U-16 boys failed to move to the 2016 AFC U-16 Asian Championship.

GENEVA — The newest contender in FIFA’s presidential election race is also the most likely to defend the work of Sepp Blatter.

Jerome Champagne, a French former diplomat, served Blatter for 11 years before being forced out of FIFA in 2010 in a power struggle that pitted the now-suspended president against rivals including Michel Platini.

Five years on, the onetime FIFA international relations director is a contender to lead the embattled governing body out of a corruption crisis and chaos partly provoked by those same leadership tensions.

“I sent my application letter and eight nomination letters to FIFA on Monday night,” Champagne told The Associated Press in an interview ahead of launching his bid for football’s top job on Friday.

“It’s an exciting mission,” said France’s deputy consul general in Los Angeles from 1991-95. “It’s a unique opportunity to restore FIFA and to continue what has been done correctly in 111 years.”

Champagne announced his bid after sending a 7-page manifesto to FIFA’s 209 member federations.

The detailed document includes plans to modernise how the embattled governing body is run, fight inequality — including cuts to European places at FIFA and the 2026 World Cup — and to trial the use of video review to help referees.

Champagne campaigned for the previous election, won in May by his former boss and ally Blatter, but did not get the required backing of five members to be a candidate.

He now joins Platini, HRH Prince Ali and David Nakhid, a former Trinidad and Tobago player, in meeting Monday’s deadline to apply for the February 26 emergency election. More contenders are set to stand.

Platini is suspended by the FIFA ethics committee and unlikely to be accepted as a candidate. The UEFA president is appealing against his ban for taking a $2 million salary payment nine years after he worked as Blatter’s personal adviser.

Blatter, who is also suspended for paying Platini from FIFA funds in 2011, called the election amid a deepening crisis in June. He announced his planned exit just four days after winning re-election despite FIFA then being subject to American and Swiss criminal investigations of bribery and suspected money-laundering.

Champagne was not linked to personal corruption during and since his FIFA stint, and gets a second election chance because of the scandals.

“If I met Mr Blatter in the street I will say hello. I’m not ashamed of that,” said Champagne.

Indeed, the 57-year-old sees his experience as a FIFA insider working with members worldwide as a vote-winner.

“They want someone who knows how FIFA functions — for the good and for the bad,” Champagne said,

Champagne chimed with current ideas to reform FIFA by suggesting a 12-year limit on all elected positions, quotas to ensure women are represented on all football bodies worldwide and “open and competitive” bidding for all commercial contracts.

Development in poorer football nations is another priority and he has long argued against Europe’s concentration of wealth and players from across the world.

He set a target of building 400 artificial turf pitches worldwide within four years, partly funded by spending less of FIFA’s $1 billion-plus annual revenue on running costs.

Up to 10 new FIFA member nations could be accepted, from Caribbean and Pacific islands and Kosovo, where Champagne has advised football officials since leaving FIFA.