Jordan’s FA President Prince Ali bin Hussein has accused Fifa President Gianni Infantino on Sunday of hijacking the ⁠Asian Football Confederation Congress for political purposes ahead of his reelection bid for a fourth term.

At the AFC’s extraordinary congress in ⁠Tokyo on Friday its ⁠president Sheikh ​Salman bin Ibrahim Al-Khalifa endorsed Infantino’s bid for reelection as Fifa president.

Months after the confederation accused Infantino of a “fundamental breach of ⁠trust” over the abandoned Fifa Forward Enterprise (FFE) proposal, Sheikh Salman told the congress that Asia was now united behind Infantino.

But Prince Ali, who has ⁠been a vocal critic of Fifa’s leadership, painted a starkly different picture of events in ​Tokyo.

“Having come back from Tokyo where the ‌AFC Congress took place, ‌the first two days were about football, which we all serve. The last day was ‌pure politics at the behest of Gianni Infantino,” Prince Ali wrote on X. “There were reports that Asia has a united position when it comes to electing the next Fifa President. In fact, nobody was allowed to speak, question, debate or talk with the media.

“Lack of transparency leads to lack of accountability. No amount of coercion, threats or ‌bribes should be allowed.“

Hibs v Celtic kicks off at midday, and here’s the roundup from Saturday. Good picture of the weather conditions.

The teams at Easter Road.

Hibernian: Sallinger, Mayor, Kerr, Ivezic, Passlack, Mulligan, Chaiwa, Newell, McGrath, Elding, Klidje. Subs: Smith, Hanley, Williams, Iredale, Cadden, Suto, Matondo, Abdulai, Bruce.

Celtic: Johnstone, Donovan, Murray, Scales, Tierney, McGregor, Baur, Duran, Nygren, Osmand, Hogh. Subs: Sinisalo, Johnston, Jota, Sorensen, Carter-Vickers, Oxlade-Chamberlain, Hassan, Mheuka, Forrest.

Kari Tulinius gets in touch: “PSG v Lyon, with both on 14 points at the top of Ligue 1, is a big game, true. But the other two sides that came into the weekend on 14 points, Monaco and Lille, will also meet today. Rennes, on 13, are also in action. Even hardened PSG fans don’t want Ligue 1 to turn into another Bundesliga, where a non-Bayern team wins the title once a decade. We’ll start finding out today whether any club is equipped to challenge PSG. If I had to take a wild guess, I’d say Rennes and Monaco look like the most complete teams, but it’s still early.”

Joshua Keeling has been on: “As a United fan, all I can think is: here we go again. Will Carrick be brave enough to drop Fernandes? He probably should, as a point of principle, especially after his point about the values of the club - which Fernandes’ outburst was definitely not in line with. At the same time, though, will he drop the man most likely to save his job? Who knows.

”I can see another Bournemouth win at Old Trafford today, and Carrick to be gone before Chelsea away next week. I want Eddie Howe. Let’s see what happens.”

Dave Estherby gets in touch: “You could argue that after all he achieved at Manchester United, Sir Alex Ferguson can do as pleases. However, Roy Keane’s “hanging around like a bad smell” comment, although a tad disrespectful, is looking increasingly close to the mark. Why is Carrick still leaning on him for advice? Ferguson is in his mid-eighties and sadly ailing; he really shouldn’t be anywhere near the club these days. Moyes, Mourinho, Giggs and Solskjaer all made the same mistake, it really is time to move on.

“Lest we forget, it was SAF’s fallout with the owners over a nag that started all of this, to say nothing of the fact he was already on the slide in his final season; Utd’s midfield in 12/13 consisting of such luminaries as Antonio Valencia, Anderson and Tom Cleverley.

“A clean break is needed.”

Mikel Arteta did not take well to being booked in the defeat of Everton.

“I do have to be careful. They should put sensors there/ There are managers who have the record in the league, 36 times in 10 minutes [they] leave the touchline - no yellows.

“I am clipping all of that so I have now a massive storage of images, so if somebody comes to me I can say, ‘I am not in the record yet’. Somebody else has the record so let’s see. Then it’s 36 yellow cards in 10 minutes for the managers. I don’t know what we are going to do - let’s see.”

It’s Ballon D’Or, Ballon D’Or, Ballon D’Or, Ballon D’Or week, and Stanley Matthews week, too. Two wizards of the dribble in Ed Aarons and Jonathan Wilson on Sir Stan’s legacy.

double quotation mark The switch of venue to England from its usual home in Paris is a mark of respect to the man who became the first active player to receive a knighthood in 1965, a few months before retiring at the age of 50. It also provides an opportunity to recall an astonishing career that began with his local side Stoke in 1932 and made the “Wizard of Dribble” the most famous player on the planet.

double quotation mark Still, the choice of Stanley Matthews, from today’s perspective, looks odd. While it is true Blackpool had finished second in the First Division in 1956, but they were 11 points behind Manchester United and had gone out of the FA Cup in the third round. Was there not a case for Duncan Edwards or Tommy Taylor? Or for Bert Trautmann, the goalkeeper who won the Football Writers’ player of the year in 1956 after playing on with a broken neck in the final as Manchester City lifted the Cup?

When Michael Carrick was asked if he can trust the players to deliver against Bournemouth at Old Trafford given the last week, under-pressure Carrick said: “I definitely trust them, yeah, 100 per cent I trust them. It wasn’t a very good night at all for so many reasons. We all know that. I think that’s pretty obvious. I definitely trust them, yeah. I trust them. We’ll be a different team on Sunday. We have to be a different team on Sunday.”

Asked if he felt that the team and club are unmanageable, as some have suggested, Carrick retorted: “No, no”.

He then spoke of his relationship with Sir Alex Ferguson and Ole Gunnar Solskjær, for whom he was key player and assistant coach. “I speak to both of them quite regularly, to be honest. There’s nothing in particular from that. I’m close to both of them and we do have regular conversations, so it’s nothing different this week.”

On Bruno Fernandes: “I think you’ve got to be careful with just saying ‘not running’,” he said. “As I said, we’ve won a lot of games over a period of time and this pressing thing, that suddenly everyone thinks about pressing.

“Pressing is one small part of football. There’s all sorts of different ways of what people are classed as a press. What actually is it? What you’re doing it for? Is it to your strength? Is it covering up other spaces? It’s just thrown about as a bit of a word at the minute of pressing.

“You don’t necessarily need to press to win games of football. Sometimes you do, sometimes you don’t.”