Issa Hayatou, president of the Confederation of African Football (Caf) for an era spanning 29 years and a senior administrator at Fifa throughout its years of corruption scandals, has finally been deposed, suffering defeat in Caf’s presidential election.
A former teacher and sports minister from Cameroon, who was first elected as the Caf president in 1988 and became a member of the Fifa executive committee two years later, lost decisively in the vote at Caf’s congress in Addis Ababa, 34-20 to Ahmad Ahmad, the president of the Madagascar Football Association.
Ahmad will replace Hayatou on Fifa’s governing council, so the election signals the departure of one more long-term fixture from world football’s governing body’s executive committee during the 17 year presidency of Sepp Blatter. That tenure ended when Blatter was banned from football in December 2015 over a SFR2m payment to the then Uefa president, Michel Platini, who was also banned. A string of other Fifa powerbrokers in that executive committee have now been indicted for alleged corruption in the US Department of Justice criminal proceedings, or been banned by Fifa’s own ethics committee, for malpractice.
Hayatou himself has not been charged or implicated in those investigations, and his long record at the heights of power was tarnished only by an alleged payment to him of FR100,000 from the marketing company ISL, which serially paid bribes to Fifa officials before it collapsed in 2001. Hayatou admitted receiving the money but has always said it was not a corrupt payment and that he used it to pay for a celebration of Caf’s 40 year anniversary in 1997.
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Issa Hayatou loses CAF Presidency to Ahmad after 29years of reign
A former teacher and sports minister from Cameroon, who was first elected as the Caf president in 1988 and became a member of the Fifa executive committee two years later, lost decisively in the vote at Caf’s congress in Addis Ababa, 34-20 to Ahmad Ahmad, the president of the Madagascar Football Association.
Ahmad will replace Hayatou on Fifa’s governing council, so the election signals the departure of one more long-term fixture from world football’s governing body’s executive committee during the 17 year presidency of Sepp Blatter. That tenure ended when Blatter was banned from football in December 2015 over a SFR2m payment to the then Uefa president, Michel Platini, who was also banned. A string of other Fifa powerbrokers in that executive committee have now been indicted for alleged corruption in the US Department of Justice criminal proceedings, or been banned by Fifa’s own ethics committee, for malpractice.
Hayatou himself has not been charged or implicated in those investigations, and his long record at the heights of power was tarnished only by an alleged payment to him of FR100,000 from the marketing company ISL, which serially paid bribes to Fifa officials before it collapsed in 2001. Hayatou admitted receiving the money but has always said it was not a corrupt payment and that he used it to pay for a celebration of Caf’s 40 year anniversary in 1997.
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Issa Hayatou loses CAF Presidency to Ahmad after 29years of reign
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