Bin Hammam Blatter's only challenger for Fifa president

Mohamed Bin Hammam

Mohamed Bin Hammam has been confirmed as Sepp Blatter's only challenger in Fifa's presidential election on 1 June.

The 61-year-old Asian confederation chief announced in March that he would stand against Blatter, 75, as head of football's world governing body.

Blatter has been president of Fifa since 1998 and recently pledged that if re-elected for a fourth term, he would step down at its conclusion in 2015.

The president will be elected at a Fifa Congress, which starts on 31 May.

Fifa had set a deadline of 1 April for all candidates to be nominated and the winner will require a two-thirds majority of the valid votes cast in the first ballot, or a majority in the second.

Bin Hammam is Blatter's first challenger since African confederation president Issa Hayatou took him on and lost by 139 votes to 56 in 2002.

There are 208 Fifa voters for this contest and the Qatari, who played an influential role in securing the 2022 World Cup for his home nation, rates his chances of becoming the the ninth president of Fifa and the first from Asia as "50-50".

Among his many plans for Fifa are supporting the introduction of goal-line technology, introducing two more officials behind the goals, increasing the body's decision-making power and spreading its wealth.

Bin Hammam, who made his fortune in construction, became president of Qatar club Al Rayyan when he was 24 before taking on roles as the head of Qatar's volleyball and table tennis bodies.

He took command of the Qatar Football Association in 1992 and four years later was elected by the AFC to Fifa's executive.

American journalist Grant Wahl, who announced in February that he intended to stand for presidency as a "people's candidate", did not take his application further.