DEADLINE day to enter the FIFA presidential election saw surprise entries and a potential eight-man lineup Monday.

    Among late tactical changes, two unexpected additions were Gianni Infantino — the right-hand man of suspended UEFA president Michel Platini, whose own entry will likely be barred — and Liberian soccer leader Musa Bility, whose campaign seemed hopelessly stalled in August.

    The list of contenders to succeed Sepp Blatter leading the corruption-hit world soccer governing body grew longer than expected and will surely be cut before the Feb. 26 ballot.

    A further twist stopped the race reaching nine as a former FIFA secretary general, Michel Zen-Ruffinen, said he decided not to run despite getting the required nominations from five of the 209 member federations.

    Just over one month ago, Platini was a strong front-runner in a small field with key backers in Asia and the Americas.

    That changed Sept. 25 when the former France great was implicated in a Swiss criminal investigation. Platini got a suspected ‘’disloyal payment’’ of US$2 million in backdated salary from FIFA funds got in 2011 with Blatter’s approval. Both are serving 90-day bans imposed by FIFA’s ethics committee pending a full investigation.

    Platini’s bloc of support seemed sure to transfer to Asia’s soccer confederation president, Sheikh Salman bin Ibrahim Al Khalifa.

    The Bahraini royal family member duly filed his nomination papers Monday and is likely the current favorite, yet his bid has exposed himself and his home country to exposure for their human rights record.

    Sheikh Salman’s entry has already been criticized by rights groups who urged FIFA’s election committee to reject him as a candidate when it oversees integrity checks in the next two weeks.

    Questions have been raised over whether Sheikh Salman, as the Bahrain Football Association president in 2011, adequately protected national team players after some took part in pro-democracy protests. Some players say they were tortured while detained by government forces.

    Still, Infantino’s late entry offers the Europe-Asia alliance an extra option if both Platini and Sheikh Salman are ruled ineligible as candidates.

    In another development, Germany’s World Cup-winning captain Franz Beckenbauer has said he made a “mistake” in the bidding process to host the 2006 World Cup, but denied that votes were bought.

    Beckenbauer was the head of the World Cup organizing committee, which reports allege made a payment to FIFA in return for a financial grant.

    The 70-year-old said a FIFA proposal “should have been rejected.”

    “In order to get a subsidy from FIFA [for the organization of the 2006 World Cup] those involved went ahead with a proposal from the FIFA finance commission that in today’s eyes should have been rejected. I, as president of the then-organizing committee bear the responsibility of this mistake.”

    (SD-Agencies)