Governing Bodies
WITH ADDITIONAL CLEARANCE, 14 NOW JOSTLE FOR 6 AFRICAN SEATS IN FIFA
Fourteen and not 13 candidates will now contest for the six seats allocated to Africa in the FIFA Council. This is sequel to the late clearance that an Algerian candidate secured just three days to the Friday elections in Rabat, Morocco.
The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) has cleared Algeria’s Khireddine Zetchi to bid for a place.
He will now slug it out for a position in the Arab/Portuguese/Spanish bloc. Those to contest with him include: Equatorial Guinea FA president,Gustavo Ndong; Morocco FA president, Fouzi Lekjaa and the former Egypt FA president, Hany Abo Rida,
While the Algerian received good news, regarding his bid to represent FIFA, who failed to fully explain why the Algerian was rejected as a candidate in January, it was not the same for interim CAF president Constant Omari whose ambitions to remain a Council member appear thwarted.
On 26 January, FIFA’s Review Committee declared the Congolese – the subject of an ongoing FIFA ethics inquiry relating to a decision to amend the billion-dollar Lagardere TV contract – ineligible to contest the vote to sit on its Council, which Omari has done since 2017.
FIFA is probing why CAF apparently agreed to buy around $20m of debt owed by a Beninois sports agency called LC2 GROUP to Lagardere Sports, the French company that had been handling Caf’s marketing and media sales until the contract was abruptly cancelled in late 2019.
Under an amendment – signed in early 2019 – to the original 2015 deal between Lagardere and CAF, the latter agreed to pay Lagardere $6.7m for the debt, all of which relates to outstanding TV rights payments, owed by LC2 GROUP.
Deposed CAF president Ahmad is also being probed on this matter, with Omari under investigation since he headed up the Caf delegation dealing with Lagardere.
Omari, who returned to being CAF’s stand-in president on Monday after CAS ruled that Ahmad must still serve a ban (albeit now reduced to two years), had appealed FIFA’s decision in vain at the court, who – on 22 February – rejected his request to suspend the global body’s ruling.
“Accordingly, the decision is still in force,” said CAS on Monday. “The CAS arbitration is ongoing. No hearing date has been fixed yet.”
This in contrast to hearings involving Cameroon’s Seidou Mbombo Njoya and Guinea’s Mamadou Antonio Souare, which will be rushed through in a bid to have a decision by Thursday – one day ahead of the Caf elections.
Both Njoya and Souare are hoping to contest the vote for places on Caf’s Executive Committee when the elections take place in the Moroccan capital Rabat on Friday.
Earlier this year, CAF’s Governance Committee rejected the candidacies of both candidates.
“An expedited procedure is in progress and a final decision will be rendered by 11 March,” CAS said of both men’s appeals.
The run-up to the CAF ballots have been dominated by legal proceedings, with one of the most decisive being the decision to maintain Ahmad’s ban – meaning that the coast is clear for South Africa’s Patrice Motsepe to be elected as president unopposed later this week.
Governing Bodies
Nigeria becoming an epicentre of global badminton as Francis Orbih enters the Badminton World Federation Council
Laurels on the courts and now glory in the boardroom sums up the mark that badminton is making in Nigeria.
The President, Badminton Federation of Nigeria (BFN), Francis Orbih, has been elected as a council member of the Badminton World Federation (BWF).
The election took place during the BWF Annual General Meeting on Saturday in Xiamen, China.
Orbih emerged victorious over top contenders from other African countries.
He will join Cameroon’s Odette Assembe Engoulou on the council, while Chipo Zumburani (Zimbabwe) and Hadia ElSaid (Egypt) missed out.
An elated Orbih expressed his gratitude to fellow badminton presidents across the globe for their trust and support.
He said, “I am deeply honoured by the trust placed in me by my peers across the badminton world.
“I look forward to quality representation, driving development initiatives, and strengthening badminton’s global reach over the next four years.”
Orbih also acknowledged the support of the Federal Government of Nigeria, particularly the National Sports Commission (NSC), which he said played a significant role in his successful bid.
“The Chairman and the Director General of the NSC monitored the entire process. I’m grateful for their involvement and confident Nigeria will benefit from this,” he stated.
He further appreciated the BFN board members and the Nigerian badminton community for their prayers and continued belief in his leadership.
“From the day I declared my intentions, the board members of BFN have been supportive, and I promise not to disappoint them,” Orbih concluded.
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A former member of the FIFA Council, Mamoutou Toure, has been released from jail in Mali after almost two years in detention for alleged corruption, Malian media reports said on Wednesday.
Toure, president of the Malian Football Federation since 2019, was released after 622 days in prison on Tuesday.
He served on the FIFA Council, world football’s all-powerful decision-making body, for four years until last month when he lost his seat after failing to contest new elections.
The 67-year-old was arrested in August 2023 on allegations of embezzling $28 million of public funds but was granted a provisional release order by the Malian courts, reports said.
He was accused of misconduct during his time as the National Assembly’s financial and administrative director from 2013-2019.
Toure denied all charges and, during his time in jail, was last August re-elected as Malian Football Federation president for a second consecutive term, with his supporters claiming he was a victim of a conspiracy fuelled by detractors.
While in jail, he received a letter of support from FIFA president Gianni Infantino. However, as of last month, Toure is no longer a member of the FIFA Council or the Confederation of African Football’s executive committee.
-Reuters
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The Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) has denied reports of an outstanding debt to former captain Christian Chukwu and has challenged anyone with verifiable documents to prove otherwise.
Chukwu, a former national team captain and chief coach, died last Saturday.
The Nigeria Football Federation decried statements in a section of social media that the football-ruling body was indebted to the deceased.
Reacting to one statement on social media that claimed NFF owed the 1980 Africa Cup of Nations-winning team captain the sum of $128,000, NFF General Secretary, Dr Mohammed Sanusi, said: “There is no record in the NFF of any outstanding indebtedness to ‘Chairman’ Christian Chukwu.
“During the first term of the Board headed by Amaju Pinnick, a committee was set up to diligently peruse the papers of coaches who were being owed, even from previous NFF administrations.
“That committee was given the clear mandate to verify all debts and ensure that the coaches being owed were paid immediately. I am aware that the ‘Chairman’ was in the employ of the NFF between 2002 and 2005, before he was relieved of the post following the 1-1 draw with Angola in a FIFA World Cup qualifying match in Kano in August 2005. There is certainly no record of indebtedness to him in the NFF.”
Sanusi challenged anyone with genuine and verifiable documents of NFF indebtedness to any coach, who has worked with any of the National Teams over the past two decades, to come forward and tender those documents.
“As a credible organization that is very much alive to its responsibilities, if we are confronted with any genuine document of indebtedness to any coach, we will offset the debt immediately.”
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