{"id":10969,"date":"2015-10-27T08:22:56","date_gmt":"2015-10-27T08:22:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.times.mw\/?p=10969"},"modified":"2015-10-27T08:22:56","modified_gmt":"2015-10-27T08:22:56","slug":"fifa-presidential-candidate-sheikh-salman-hits-out-at-nasty-lies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/2015\/10\/27\/fifa-presidential-candidate-sheikh-salman-hits-out-at-nasty-lies\/","title":{"rendered":"Fifa presidential candidate Sheikh Salman hits out at &#8216;nasty lies&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p id=\"story_continues_1\" class=\"introduction\">Fifa presidential candidate Sheikh Salman bin Ebrahim al-Khalifa has hit out at &#8220;nasty lies&#8221; over his time as Bahrain Football Association head.<\/p>\n<p>He <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/sport\/0\/football\/34611533\">has been accused<\/a> by Bahraini human rights groups of complicity in the detention and torture of footballers and other athletes.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I cannot deny something that I haven&#8217;t done,&#8221; the 49-year-old told BBC Sport.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Such accusations are not just damaging, it&#8217;s really hurting. Some people have agenda on their table.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Scores of people were killed in 2011 when Bahraini security forces put down mass Shia-led protests calling for reforms.<\/p>\n<p>Rights groups say Sheikh Salman helped identify players involved in the protests and failed to protect them from abuses.<\/p>\n<p>Sheikh Salman told the BBC&#8217;s Richard Conway: &#8220;It&#8217;s not just damaging me, it&#8217;s damaging the people and the country.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;These are false, nasty lies that have been repeated again and again in the past and the present.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Applications to succeed Sepp Blatter as president of football&#8217;s world governing body had to be submitted by 23:00 GMT on Monday.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Salman will not take a salary if he is elected president of Fifa<\/li>\n<li>He backs the 2018 and 2022 World Cups to go ahead in Russia and Qatar respectively<\/li>\n<li>Accusations of human rights abuses are false and &#8220;damage Bahrain&#8221;, he says<\/li>\n<li>He supports limiting the Fifa presidency to three terms and 12 years<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>President of the Asian Football Confederation since 2013, Sheikh Salman vowed to clean up Fifa&#8217;s reputation, which has been left in tatters following a much-publicised spate of corruption charges, which began in May when seven top officials <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/world-europe-32895048\">were arrested in Zurich.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;With the support I&#8217;m going to get we&#8217;re going to turn it around very quick,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We have big examples of football organisations around the world &#8211; the Premier League, the Bundesliga, even Uefa who have from a football side and a revenue side, it is not even greater than Fifa, but it is handled in a very professional way. And this is what we want to bring to Fifa.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>With seven other candidates thought to be in the running for the Fifa presidency, Salman added: &#8220;To the other candidates, they have to be realistic as well.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Unless you are supported by your confederation it&#8217;s going to be a very difficult job.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Fifa presidential candidate Sheikh Salman bin Ebrahim al-Khalifa has hit out at &#8220;nasty lies&#8221; over his time as Bahrain Football Association head. He has been accused by Bahraini human rights groups of complicity in the detention and torture of footballers and other athletes. &#8220;I cannot deny something that I haven&#8217;t done,&#8221; the 49-year-old told BBC [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10969","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10969","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10969"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10969\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10969"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10969"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10969"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}