(MENAFN- Arab News) HOOFDDORP Netherlands: The international football players' union FIFPro has urged FIFA to block presidential contenders with a poor record on human rights.
FIFPro's call on Friday comes as the Asian Football Confederation's President Sheik Salman bin Ibrahim Al-Khalifa considers entering the presidential race by Monday's deadline.
As president of the Bahrain football federation in 2011 Sheikh Salman allegedly failed to protect national team players who were arrested during pro-democracy protests. Some players claim they were tortured.
'A new FIFA president would also need to show a body of work based on social wellbeing fairness democratic values and human rights' FIFPro said in a statement.
Those who cannot 'should be eliminated from the process without further delay' said the union which represents 65000 players worldwide.
Presidential hopefuls must pass integrity checks overseen by FIFA's election committee before being accepted as candidates in the Feb. 26 poll.
FIFPro did not name Sheikh Salman in its statement but the Bahraini royal was singled out in a critical statement by the Brussels-based International Trade Union Confederation.
'(I)t is inconceivable that someone who is facing such grave allegations of human rights violations could step into the void at the top of FIFA resulting from Swiss and US corruption investigations' Sharan Burrow the ITUC general secretary said in a statement.
'It's difficult to know how low FIFA politics can actually go' Burrow added.
FIFA declined to investigate the allegations against Sheikh Salman in 2011 and in 2014 then-FIFA ethics prosecutor Michael Garcia also did not take up a case the ITUC said.
Sheikh Salman who was elected as AFC leader two years after the protests in Bahrain has previously said the issue was for politicians to handle not football officials.

Slush fund exits

Meanwhile the former president of the German football federation has accused his successor of lying saying there was definitely a slush fund used in Germany's successful 2006 World Cup bid.
Theo Zwanziger told Der Spiegel weekly that his successor Wolfgang Niersbach must have known about the secret money for years.
'There was definitely a slush fund in the German World Cup bid' Zwanziger told Spiegel. 'And it is clear as well that the present DFB president did not learn about it a couple of weeks ago as he claims but has known about it at least since 2005.'
He added that 'the way I see it Niersbach is lying.'
Der Spiegel reported a week ago that a slush fund of 10.3 million Swiss francs (about $6 million at that time) was set up to buy the votes of four Asian representatives on the FIFA executive committee.
Niersbach has denied any vote-buying and said the money was used to a payment to FIFA two years after Germany won the bid in 2000.
However suspended FIFA President Sepp Blatter's spokesman Klaus Stoehlker on Friday also disputed Niersbach's assertions that the payment was arranged at a private meeting between Blatter and Franz Beckenbauer in January 2002.
But Stoehlker said 'there was no private meeting with President Blatter' and Beckenbauer in 2002. According to Stoehlker Blatter commented that 'I don't know anything about this case.'