FIFA Presidential Election Will Be Held In February

Today’s announcement that FIFA will finally hold a presidential election to replace the resigning Sepp Blatter will be held on Feb. 26, 2016, is typical FIFA frustration in that it’ll mean Blatter was able to hang on for nine whole months after calling it quits in disgrace. But let’s have some optimism: it also means that it’s actually going to happen.

The special election will be formally announced at today’s press conference, which you can watch right here. At the same press conference, Domenico Scala, FIFA head of audit and compliance, will announce a series of reforms. According to the BBC, those reforms are expected to include:

Publishing the salaries of Fifa’s president and executive committee members

Introducing term limits for all Fifa executives and its president, likely to be a maximum of three terms of four years

Making Fifa responsible for integrity checks on potential executive committee members away from regional confederations and introducing a centralised ‘fit and proper person’ test

Fifa’s annual congress of 209 member associations to directly elect executive committee members.

As for the FIFA presidency, a strong front-runner has already emerged in UEFA president Michel Platini. A strong and dogged Blatter supporter, Platini is said to have already obtained the support of the North American, South American, European, and Asian football federations.