PRETORIA: FIFA presidential candidate Tokyo Sexwale would consider allowing national teams to wear sponsors’ logos on their shirts if he wins the election next February 26.

The 62-year-old South African is one of five contenders to succeed Sepp Blatter – and he made a poor ‘debut’ showing last month at a New York conference in which he gave scant indication of having considered the demands of the leader of the world football federation.

Sexwale, in launching his manifesto, produced the shirt-sponsor idea which would cause more problems than it might financially solve.

He said: “I would seriously explore the possibility of the national jersey, as happens in other sporting codes, bearing the logo of the main sponsor – not only the jersey-maker as is currently the case.

“There is space there for much value worth millions of dollars which will be destined directly into FAs’ coffers.”

Shirt sponsorship is commonplace in the club game but not national team football. This is largely because the major competitions, such as the World Cup and European Championship, are contract-specific to sponsors of governing bodies such as FIFA and UEFA.

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