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Maradona to run for FIFA president

Xinhua, June 23, 2015 Adjust font size:

Argentinian football legend Diego Armando Maradona will run for the presidency of scandal-hit world soccer body FIFA, media reported Monday.

"I'm a candidate," the outspoken retired footballer and coach told a close associate, according to Argentinian daily Clarin and other publications.

Maradona has been one of the harshest critics of FIFA's top executives, especially its disgraced president, the Swiss-born Joseph Blatter.

Blatter -- who defiantly stood for reelection in May even as several FIFA officials were indicted for bribery and money laundering, and was voted to fifth four-year term -- finally caved in to pressure, calling for extraordinary congress to elect a successor.

Maradona's Uruguayan cohost on a sports program that airs on Venezuelan TV network Telesur, Victor Hugo Morales, said via Twitter that he had called the ex-player and "he told me that he was going to be a candidate for the presidency of FIFA and he authorized me to announce it."

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro first proposed Maradona run for football's top office earlier this month. Endit