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Ammon News - AMMONNEWS - FIFA Presidential candidate Prince Ali bin-Al Hussein has called for an investigation after the governing world body awarded US TV rights for the 2026 World Cup to the Fox Network. Sepp Blatter had earlier announced the awarding of the rights to the channel, which is already set to cover the 2018 and 2022 World Cups as well.

No bidding process was initiated for the processes. Fox, in 2011, won the rights for English TV coverage after bidding around $425 million, according to an ESPN report. A fresh auction could have raised even more money for the body, and has thus risked inviting further controversy about the workings of the governing body.

"FIFA is constantly reviewing the market for its media rights and has ongoing discussions with media companies around the world,'' Nicolas Ericson stated in the ESPN report, replying to a question on how the process was involved.

Prince Ali, Jordan’s presidential candidate, is unconvinced and claims he is looking into how the process was handled. Even the other presidential candidate in the race, Michael van Praag, has termed the decision as strange. Prince Ali went on to add that he would be looking at how these decisions are taken, especially after the next elections are over and the new executive committee is in place.

We're talking about huge sums of money that are potentially being wasted and not spent on future generations and not getting the best deal possible for FIFA. It's really irresponsible that these decisions have been taken,” Prince Ali said.

The Jordanian candidate also went on about his manifesto, claiming he would also look into the viability of having a multi-nation World Cup, similar to Euro 2020, which is set to be held in 13 different countries. He also claimed to support the idea of confederations taking turns to host the World Cup, but it would still be dependent on the quality of the bids.

Sepp Blatter’s FIFA has already come under heavy criticism for its awarding of the 2022 World Cup to Qatar, and also the corruption involved behind it. Prince Ali, Michael van Praag and former Portuguese footballer Luis Figo are all competing against Sepp Blatter for the presidency, with the latter having held it since 1998.

*International Business Times