ZURICH: Prince Ali of Jordan has approached the Court of Arbitration for Sport to try to help ensure practical fair play in Friday’s vote for the new president of world football federation FIFA writes KEIR RADNEDGE.

The Jordanian, who took 73 votes from now-banned Sepp Blatter in last May’s election in Zurich, has claimed that a glass booth is the only way “to ensure transparency.”

A lawyer for Prince Ali bin Al Hussein said: “Only a transparent booth can prove that each voter is following his heart and conscience and that there are no forced votes by preventing voters taking photos of their voting paper to prove that they’d followed voting instructions.”

Prince Ali contacted CAS after his request was rejected by Domenico Scala, the Swiss businessman who chairs FIFA’s electoral supervision committee.

Already FIFA had laid down that voters would not be allowed to enter the voting booth next Friday with their mobile phones.

A spokesperson said: “Voters can have their mobiles in the congress hall but must leave them behind when they go to vote. They will be forbidden from transmitting any visual image during the voting process.”

Prince Ali could hold the balance of voting power, after the first round of voting, between front-runnersĀ Gianni Infantino, the general secretary of European governing body UEFA, and the Asian Football Confederation president Sheikh Salman bin Ebrahim al-Khalifa.

Outsider candidates are South Africa’s Tokyo Sexwale and France’s Jerome Champagne.

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