Prince who would be president . . . who is Ali bin Al Hussein of Jordan?
AMMAN: His Royal Highness Prince Ali Bin Al-Hussein of Jordan (born on 23 December 1975) is the son of the late His Majesty King Hussein and Her Majesty Queen Alia of Jordan.
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 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 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 King Abdullah II 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.
Throughout his 15 years in various leadership positions in football, Prince Ali has been a consistent advocate for development and good governance.
AFDP creation
In January of 2012, Prince Ali founded the Asian Football Development Project (AFDP), a non-profit youth commission headquartered in Amman, Jordan.
Under his leadership, AFDP works 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 head scarfs 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.
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 is also a member of member of the FIFA executive committee member of the FIFA executive committee, the executive committee of the Asian Football Confederation (AFC). He serves as chairman of the fair play and social responsibility committee and deputy chairman of the football committee at FIFA, as well as chairman of the social responsibility committee and deputy chairman of the development committee at AFC.
Prince Ali holds the Al-Nahda decoration of the first degree as well as a number of foreign decorations, including a British knighthood, the French légion d’honneur and the Order of the Rising Sun of Japan.
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