Baghdad (NINA) – The President of the (dissolved) Iraqi Football Federation, Hussein Saeed, announced his withdrawal from the March 7, race for Parliamentary election 7.

Saeed told NINA on Friday, Feb. 12, "Patriotic and ethical responsibility make it necessary on us to explain the reasons for withdrawing from the election after we had decided to run on the IRAQIYAH Slate's list."

He added, "We ran for election to represent Iraq's sports, but some influential persons at the government who have imposed themselves on the field of sports and are destroying sports in general and football in particular, did not like me running for election."

Saeed went on, "My name was not among the 511 names listed by the Justice and Accountability Body, sent to the Iraqi High Electoral Commission (IHEC) that made those influential at the government to hysterically pressure the Body to include my name among the expelled, yet the IHEC rejected their request for being illegal."

"But those influential at the government did not stop their efforts to exclude me from representing Iraqi sports in Parliament through making all kinds of accusations against me, though final date has elapsed." He continued.

Saeed added, "In such environments stained in corruption that I was far from through out my whole 36 years athletic life, during which I served my country as a player, trainer and administrator; this unhealthy political atmosphere contradict with the healthy clean atmosphere of sports, which I used to be in, therefore I distance myself from swimming in the trends of politics while I keep working in serving and supporting my fellow athletes who are running for election to up grade Iraq's sports."

Recently, Hussein Saeed had declared that he is running for election among the IRAQIYAH Slate, headed by Iyad Allawi. But the spokesman for the government, Ali Dabbagh, announced today that Saeed is been included in the DeBaathification measures by the Justice and Accountability Body and he was included by the measures on August 13, 2007. / End.