Former FIFA official Jerome Champagne formally announced on Monday that he will stand against incumbent Sepp Blatter in next year's election for president of the world soccer body.
"I have the honor of informing you that I have just written to the FIFA ad-hoc Electoral Committee and its president, Mr. Domenico Scala, to confirm my intention to run for FIFA president," Champagne said in a letter on his campaign website.
The Frenchman, FIFA's former director of international relations, announced in January that he intended to run for the presidency - the most powerful job in soccer - but then confused many observers with his comments regarding Blatter.
At his launch news conference, Champagne had declared he did not believe he could beat Blatter and that he was undecided about whether he would even run if his former boss was a candidate.
Blatter, 78, announced last week that he would seek a fifth term and, with UEFA president Michel Platini having decided against challenging him, the prospect of the Swiss being unopposed looked likely.
Champagne did not mention Blatter by name in his statement but the 56-year-old said it was important to have a debate over the future of the game.
"I am happy that the debate about the future of FIFA and football has finally begun with the prospect of various candidates," he said, adding that he would like all candidates to take part in public and televised debates across the world.
"First and foremost, debating about issues is a normal process in an institution based on democratic principles.
"Then, this debate is particularly indispensable for football," he added.
"We have to take clear and informed decisions on whether we want to continue with the current economic polarization, and the sporting imbalances it brings in its wake, or be willing to rebalance the game in our globalised 21st century."
FIFA's Deputy Secretary General between 2002 and 2005, Champagne worked on special projects between 2005 and 2007 and was Director of International Relations from 2007 until he left FIFA in 2010 after political infighting cost him his position.
A former diplomat, since 2010 Champagne has worked as an independent international football consultant focusing on resolving issues in Kosovo, Palestine and Israel and Cyprus.
In 2012 he issued a 26-page 20,000 word document entitled "What FIFA for the 21st Century?" outlying his ideas for reform.
He is married with three children, lives in Zurich and supports French club St Etienne.
Anand outplays Vallejo Pons to stay ahead in Bilbao
Five-time world champion Viswanathan Anand cashed in on his chances to put it across Francisco Vallejo Pons of Spain in the second round of Bilbao Final Masters.
Anand displayed his technical prowess and had Vallejo off-track with some brilliant moves and even though it would go down as a blunder by the Spaniard it was clear that the Indian ace plotted it.
Maintaining a clean slate after two games, Anand took his tally to six points and the Indian will now take on Levon Aronian of Armenia in what seems like an early summit clash in the four-player double round-robin tournament.
With four games still to play, Aronian kept himself in contention with a technical demolition of Ruslan Ponomariov of Ukraine in the only other match of the day.
As things stand, Anand on six points is followed by Aronian on four, followed by Vallejo Pons who just has one point to his credit. Ponomariov, who lost to Anand in the opener, is reeling at the bottom yet to open his account.
Anand made his intentions clear for a fighting game by going for the sharp Ragozine defense as black against Vallejo.
"Basically we played a very interesting theoretical line where white has a very dangerous pawn in return for the exchange, my impression was it was balanced throughout, can't be sure without checking," said Anand.
The opening was sorted in favour of Anand as Vallejo had not expected it and Anand piled on the pressure to win a rook for a Knight as the game progressed. The technicalities, however, were far over as Vallejo had a dangerous passed pawn and Anand agreed that the Spaniard blew it up in one move.
"I thought I found this right manoeuvre not to get worse, and then suddenly my opponent got a bit confused (as) he was quite a bit short of time, the problem for him was that he blundered the game away in one move so he was quite unlucky," Anand said matter-of-factly.
Anand gave nothing away on the forthcoming world championship match against Magnus Carlsen slated in November.
When asked if this second victory was significant for his match, Anand said, "Let's not get ahead of ourselves, I am obviously happy with the win and I will take it from there."
Results round 2: Francisco Vallejo Pons (Esp, 1) lost to V Anand (Ind, 6); Levon Aronian (Arm, 4) beat Ruslan Ponomariov (Ukr, 0).
Halep qualifies for WTA Finals
World No 2 Simona Halep has become the third player to book her place at the WTA Tour's season ending Finals tournament in Singapore next month.
The Romanian joins world number one and U.S. Open champion Serena Williams and Russian Maria Sharapova in booking places at the $6.5 million event for the top eight women over the season.
The 22-year-old has won the Qatar Open and her home Bucharest Open events this year to take her career tally to eight WTA titles and she also finished runner-up to Sharapova at the French Open.
Halep, who started the year ranked 11th in the world, made the last four at Wimbledon but was knocked out in the third round at the U.S. Open last month.
"It has always been a dream of mine to compete in the WTA Finals," Halep said in a statement on Tuesday.
"I've had great success this year, and I'm looking forward to competing against the best players in the world in Singapore."
The WTA Finals switches to Singapore for the first time this year and will be held at the country's Indoor Stadium, which forms part of their new $1 billion Sports Hub.
Agnieszka Radwanska, Petra Kvitova, Li Na, Eugenie Bouchard and Ana Ivanovic currently hold the remaining qualifying places for the Oct. 17-26 event with U.S. Open runner up Caroline Wozniacki just outside the top eight.
World 100m swimming champion Magnussen splits with coach
World 100 metres freestyle champion swimmer James Magnussen is gambling on a new coach taking him to Olympic gold in Rio de Janeiro in 2016 after parting ways with his long-time mentor Brant Best.
The 23-year-old Australian successfully defended his title at the world championships in Barcelona last year but missed out on gold in the blue riband sprint at the 2012 Olympics in London by a fingertip.
"Brant has been such an important part of my journey as a professional swimmer, and in shaping me as person," Magnussen said in a statement on Tuesday.
"Those things combined have made this decision incredibly difficult.
"As I launch into this next competitive block, I have resolved that in order to refocus my program, and to achieve a sense of renewed invigoration, part of that change process involves working with a new coach."
Best, the high performance coach at the New South Wales Institute of Sport, guided Magnussen through his breakthrough season of 2010 and the following year prepared him for his stunning victory at the world championships in Shanghai.
Magnussen led an Australia one-two-three to win 100m gold at the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow earlier this year but his season has also been disrupted by back problems and he finished third in the event at the Pan Pacific Championships.
The time of 47.59 seconds he swam in January remains the best of 2014 but despite a string of sub 48-second times over the last few years, Magnussen has not been able to challenge Brazilian Cesar Cielo's 2009 world record of 46.91.
