AFCON
FATMA SAMOURA, FIFA GENERAL DELEGATE FOR CAF ASSUMES DUTIES
Senegal’s Fatma Samoura, lady saddled with the Herculean task of cleaning up the Augean stable at the offices of Confederation of African Football, CAF, assumes duties on Saturday, two days behind scheduled.
The FIFA General Secretary, the first African as well as the first Lady ever to head FIFA’s administrative offices will go by the designation, FIFA General Delegate for the six months her new role is expected to last.
She took part
in two meetings at the CAF Headquarters in Cairo, on Saturday. Both meetings
were chaired by CAF President, Ahmad. The first meeting was with the Directors,
whilst the second involved the administrative staff.
During the two meetings, the CAF President officially introduced Samoura, lauding her ‘acceptance to the call of her continent’. He reiterated his commitment to complete the reform process in the wake of many challenges facing African football.
Ahmad expressed his gratitude to FIFA President Gianni Infantino for his constant support to CAF, whilst imploring the staff to support him in the accomplishment of this mission, which aims only to make the CAF more efficient.
On her part, Samoura thanked the CAF President for the initiative to call on FIFA’s expertise to assess the current situation at CAF and propose ways of applying reforms.
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She affirmed that her task would be carried out with the interest of the administration at heart and in conformity with the CAF Statutes and other regulatory frameworks. Citing her experiences at the United Nations and recently FIFA, she urged members of the administration to be loyal and ready to make sacrifices in the quest to push African football to enviable heights.
The FIFA Delegate General for Africa was accompanied by Mario Gallavotti, Director of the Independent Committees at FIFA, who will be one of her aides for the six-month mission.
Both meetings were held in a good atmosphere and the members of the administration showed their total commitment towards the joint CAF/FIFA mission.
The Libyan Football Federation (LFF) has sacked its Serbian coach, Milutin Sredojević who is popularly known as Micho.
This is coming ahead of Libya’s back-to-back Africa Cup of Nations clashes with Nigeria next month.
Paradoxically, Sports Village Square gathered that the coach’s contract was only recently renewed for six months before the axe fell on the Serbian.
His sack was precipitated by the results obtained in their teo matches of the AFCON qualifiers.
Libya drew 1-1 with Rwanda at home and lost 2-1 away to Benin Republic despite beig a goal up at half time.
The Libyan side, Mediterranean Knights are due to play against the Nigeria Super Eagles in Uyo on 6 October while the return leg holds on 14 October at the 11 July Stadium in Tripoli.
According to information Sports Village Square gathered from Tripoli, the Mediterranean Knights’ coach, Micho led the Libyan national team to win nine matches since taking over in October of last year, he failed to build a strong team due to his poor choices.
He also took a risk with the footballers chosen in the AFCON qualifiers, and the result was shocking to the Libyan sports audience.
According to sources close to the Libyan Football Federation, there is a strong tendency to sign a national coach to lead the Libyan team during the remaining qualifiers for the African Cup of Nations.
CAF President Patrice Motsepe has lashed out at Ghana and some other African countries whose home grounds were recently banned from hosting CAF matches owing to inadequate facilities. He made the remarks in Nairobi, Kenya during a press conference,
After the MatchDay 2 of the 2025 Africa Cup of Nations qualifiers, CAF ruled Ghana’s Baba Yara Stadium in Kumasi as being inadequate to host international matches. Being the only approved ground in the country, Ghana will now look towards either Cote d’Ivoire or Togo for their remaining home matches of the Afcon qualifiers.
Other African countries without approved home grounds are: Djibouti, Chad, Niger, Eritrea, Gabon, Sudan, Zimbabwe, Madagascar, São Tomé and Burundi.
Motsepe voiced his frustration over the recurring issue of nations being unable to host home games.
“Nothing frustrates me more than a national team or club side having to play home matches outside,” he stated.
He stressed the significance of playing in front of home fans, adding, “You can’t grow football if the national teams or club sides aren’t playing in front of their home fans.”
Motsepe reiterated CAF’s commitment to working with countries to ensure they have at least one suitable stadium to host international fixtures.
“Our conversations in every country are to make sure there is at least one stadium capable of hosting a CAF category C game,” he emphasized.
The on-going CAF AFCON Cote d’Ivoire 2023 Coaches Symposium in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire has brought together, the last three coaches that handled the Nigeria national football team.
Gernot Rohr, Jose Peseiro and Austin Eguavoen are part of the the elite coaches currently gathered in Abidjan.
Gernot Rohr whose tenure of 5 years and 55 matches is the longest ever by any coach in Nigeria, is currently handling Nigeria’s Africa Cupof Nations and World Cup qualifying rivals, Benin Republic. He was succeeded in the interim by Austin Eguavoen who is currently having another interim stint.
Peseiro left his position after the Africa Cup of Nations
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