By Alaric Gomes, Senior Reporter
Published 00:00 12 February 2012
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Last week was historic for football in the UAE. No, not just because Fifa, the world governing body of sports which threw a lifeline for the UAE's qualifying campaign to London 2012 by awarding them full points despite their loss to Iraq, but more because the General Assembly of the UAE FA ratified the rules and regulations for conducting the country's first-ever elections to the football governing body.
What exactly does this decision of ratifying the rules mean to the country?
For a start, it means that the UAE FA will at last have a totally unbiased and democratically elected body governing football. The Transitional Committee overseeing the election process, led by Yousuf Al Sarkal, has already set the ball rolling by having an Election Committee and an Appeal Committee in place.
The next task before these committees will be to work and open the door for the start of the entire election process. There is all likelihood that the actual election process — and a brand-new board of directors — would be complete by the end of April, if not latest by mid-May this year.
The General Assembly has decided in principle on certain aspects of the election process and life beyond that for the UAE FA. It has decreed that the number of officials in the new board, including the president and his two deputies, be fixed at 11. It has also stated that the regulations guiding the entire electoral process should stay independent, and that the new FA Board of Directors be allowed to serve a four-year term.
I now have a hope that there will be at least a few former footballers who will file their nomination to get elected to the new board of directors.
"We need administrators and we need ex-footballers. The ideal thing for UAE football would be to have a good mix of both," a top official from the UAE FA told me.