A major issue has now emerged just days away from the Vice President elections for the Fiji Football Association and one of the candidates is now calling on the Fiji FA to confirm the validity of his nomination by the next hour.
Lautoka lawyer and former Lautoka Soccer President, Iqbal Khan said he has received confirmation from many districts that Fiji FA board members allegedly visited the district executives and asked them to nominate the current Vice Presidents for the elections.
Khan said this resulted in other candidates not getting a chance to be nominated as a district can only nominate one candidate for each division.
He said other aspiring candidates were being sidelined.
Khan said he is lucky that Navua Soccer withdrew their earlier nomination and nominated him for the elections.
However he wants a confirmation from the Fiji FA CEO, Bob Kumar by 2pm today to confirm his validity of the nomination or he will go to court.
Khan said he does not want the Fiji FA to say on the day of the election that the nomination is invalid.
Khan questions why there have been alleged attempts by some to sideline other candidates.
Navua Soccer President, Faud Ali said they found out that some of the Fiji FA board members were allegedly taking the same nominations from every soccer district to deny any new person from contesting.
He confirmed that two board members had approached Navua to nominate the current VP's as a backup.
However when they found out that they were trying to block others from contesting, they changed their nomination.
Ali said the best people should be chosen to move soccer forward in the country rather than some people just trying to protect their position by using all these tactics.
Meanwhile, Fiji FA CEO, Bob Kumar has refused to confirm if Iqbal Khan can contest the Fiji FA Vice President elections next week.
Kumar said he has received the letter from Khan and will respond to him.
He also said that he has not called any district official on this matter.
Story by: Vijay Narayan and Dhanjay deo
