Governing Bodies
From prison to the throne: Jailed candidate set to win Mali FA elections
This Tuesday, a football election like few others will take place in Mali when the one-and-only candidate, the current president of Mali’s football federation (Femafoot), looks set to win a four-year term from a prison cell.
Mamatou Toure, widely known as Bavieux, is currently in jail in the Malian capital Bamako as he awaits trial after being accused of embezzling funds during his time as a financial and administrative director in Mali’s National Assembly.
The 66-year-old, who has led Femafoot since 2019, is a member of both the Fifa Council, the board of football’s world governing body, and the executive committee of the Confederation of African Football (Caf).
He is also the sole candidate for the elections after being the only one of four men to pass an eligibility test, which he managed to do prior to being indicted on 9 August by the Malian state for “attacking public property as well as forgery and use of forgery and complicity”. Along with four others, Toure is accused – in charges that all deny – of embezzling a reported US$28 million from the state purse.
Toure is a former tax inspector with a master’s degree in auditing. The charges against him cover a period between 2013 and 2019, when the five representatives of the then ruling RPM (‘Rassemblement pour le Mali’) party were in power, and which largely pre-date Toure’s election as Femafoot president in August 2019.
On the eve of Tuesday’s elections, BBC Sport Africa can highlight a series of financial gaps that have taken place within Femafoot under the administration of Toure. While hundreds of thousands of dollars remain unaccounted for, so several of Mali’s national team trainers have complained about going unpaid for many months.
Financial questions
An audit conducted into Femafoot’s finances of 2022, conducted by the Pyramis group and dated March 2023, which has been seen by the BBC, shows that Femafoot did not pay any taxes to the Malian state regarding its employees.
“Femafoot deducted taxes and duties from staff salaries for a total amount of CFA 23,9m [just under $40,000],” the audit stated. “Femafoot did not declare or pay these taxes and duties.”
The tax failure was not new, since an audit into Femafoot’s financial affairs of 2020 (covering January-September) had also found it did not pay the country’s inland revenue ‘all the tax deductions it retains on salaries paid to its staff’. That same 2020 audit (conducted by the Cabinet Ficogec group) also stated that key financial and management reports had gone missing.
In addition to the tax issue, the March 2023 audit showed that nearly $50,000 were awarded to unspecified ‘other parties’ without any reason given nor any approval agreed by Femafoot’s board for the payments – in direct contradiction of the body’s statutes. When sports equipment was sold for just over US$300,000, US$138.5k was registered in Femafoot’s account and US$144k was paid – in cash – to MK Productions, the company reported as providing the sports kit, so leaving US$22k unaccounted for.
Without receiving documents relating to the sales, with the auditors citing no inventory not itemised sales, Pyramis declared themselves ‘unable to comment on the correct valuation of the sports equipment sales’. The BBC can find no record for a sports company called MK Productions within Mali – where the only-registered company with that name works in media, not sportswear.
The questions raised in the 2023 audit follow a theme from 2022, when a document signed by 44 Malian football officials – nearly all of whom were presidents of clubs, including some of the country’s top sides – also raised several financial concerns.
One of these was how Femafoot spent nearly US$1.25m in the final quarter of 2020, despite none of this being presented to the federation’s executive committee for approval (while also questioning why this quarter was not covered by Cabinet Ficogec’s 2020 audit).
Addressed to Mali’s then political rulers, the document also queried what Femafoot had done with the $790,000 it received from Caf regarding the country’s participation at the 2021 Africa Cup of Nations, money that should have been refunded to the Malian government since the latter finances the country’s national football teams.
Finally, no financial report has been presented to Femafoot’s general assembly, where all its members gather, for the past three years, which contravenes Fifa statutes. The BBC has sent questions regarding all the financial issues outlined above to Femafoot but has yet to receive a response.
Sole Candidate
Despite the serious pending charges against him, Toure is the sole candidate for Tuesday’s Femafoot presidential election – after three others failed to pass the eligibility test. One candidate, former Femafoot media spokesperson Salaha Baby, did initially pass, but Toure successfully appealed his eligibility to rule him out of the race.
“The disqualifications of our candidacies follow a multitude of fanciful procedures by the armed arms of the Femafoot president,” Sekou Diogo Keita, a former vice-president of Femafoot, told BBC Sport Africa.
“Why is no one taking any action? The only candidacy validated is the one of someone actually jailed.”
Keita, who has written to Fifa to complain about the ongoing process as well as Femafoot’s financial affairs, is currently serving a five-year ban issued by the Malian football body in 2022 on charges he describes as politically-charged. Meanwhile, Femafoot has failed to answer a question about showing bias towards its current president when asked by the BBC.
Toure’s would-be rivals have appealed his eligibility – arguing, among other matters, that he should have declared the pending state investigation into him when filling out his eligibility form for the Femafoot post.
“Are you currently the subject of a disciplinary, criminal or civil procedure or investigation?” asks one of the questions on the Femafoot eligibility form.
Toure’s rivals believe he either failed to accurately answer the above question or simply did not fill in any form.
On 15 August, Baby formally wrote to sport’s highest court, the Court of Arbitration for Sport, to appeal against Toure’s candidacy and request the reinstatement of his own.
“Being a member of the Fifa Council cannot spare Mamoutou Touré from the good governance protocol established by your body,” wrote Keita to Fifa Secretary General Fatma Samoura.
In response, Fifa – which is sending emissaries to oversee Tuesday’s vote, as are Caf – said it “has been closely following the electoral process”.
“Any dispute concerning the electoral process should follow the established legal procedures,” the governing body added. “Please note that all Fifa Forward projects undergo an annual central review by Fifa.”
-BBC
Kirsty Coventry became the president of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), the most powerful person in sport, on Monday in a handover ceremony with her predecessor Thomas Bach.
The Zimbabwean is the first woman and African to head the body, and at 41, the youngest since Baron Pierre de Coubertin, who is credited with founding the modern-day Olympics.
Coventry accepted the Olympic key from Bach, who, like her, is an Olympic champion — he won a team fencing gold in 1976 and she earned two swimming golds in 2004 and 2008.
Stepping down after a turbulent 12-year tenure, Bach expressed his confidence that the Olympic movement was “in the best of hands” and Coventry would bring “conviction, integrity and a dynamic perspective” to the role.
Coventry, who swept to a crushing first-round victory in the election in Greece in March, leans heavily on her family.
Aside from her parents, who were present at the ceremony in Lausanne, there is her husband Tyrone Seward, who was effectively her campaign manager, and two daughters, six-year-old Ella, who Bach addresses as “princess”, and Lily, just seven months old.
“Ella saw this spider web in the garden and I pointed out how it is made, and how strong and resilient it is to bad weather and little critters,” said Coventry, who takes over officially at midnight Swiss time Monday (2200 GMT).
“But if one little bit breaks it becomes weaker. That spider web is our movement, it is complex, beautiful and strong but it only works if we remain together and united.”
‘Pure passion’
Coventry said she could not believe how her life had evolved since she first dreamt of Olympic glory in 1992.
“How lucky are we creating a platform for generations to come to reach their dreams,” she said to a packed audience in a marquee in the Olympic House garden, which comprised IOC members, including those she defeated, and dignitaries.
“It is amazing and incredible, indeed I cannot believe that from my dream in 1992 of going to an Olympic Games and winning a medal I would be standing here with you to make dreams for more young children round the world.”
Coventry, who served in the Zimbabwean government as sports and arts Minister from 2019 to this year, said the Olympic movement was much more than a “multi-sport event platform.”
“We (IOC members) are guardians of this movement, which is also about inspiring and changing lives and bringing hope,” she said.
“These things are not to be taken lightly and I will be working with each and every one of you to continue to change lives and be a beacon of hope in a divided world.
“I am really honoured to walk this journey with you.”
Bach, who during his tenure had to grapple with Russian doping and their invasions of the Crimea and Ukraine as well as the Covid pandemic, said he was standing down filled with “gratitude, joy and confidence” in his successor.
“With her election it sends out a powerful message, that the IOC continues to evolve,” said the 71-year-old German, who was named honorary lifetime president in Greece in March.
“It has its first female and African to hold this position, and the youngest president since Pierre de Coubertin. She represents the truly global and youthful spirit of our community.”
Bach, who choked back tears at one point during his valedictory speech, was praised to the rafters by Coventry, who was widely seen as his preferred candidate of the seven vying for his post.
After a warm embrace, she credited him with teaching her to “listen to people and to respect them,” and praised him for leading the movement with “pure passion and purpose.”
“You have kept us united through the most turbulent times.
“You left us with many legacies and hope, thank you from the bottom of my heart for leading us with passion and never wavering from our values.”
-AFP
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Former Zimbabwean swimmer Kirsty Coventry took over the leadership of the International Olympic Committee from Thomas Bach in a ceremony on Monday with the 2028 Los Angeles Games already threatening to fill her in-tray to overflowing.
Coventry, who starts her eight-year spell officially on Tuesday as the most powerful sports administrator in the world, became the first woman and first African to be elected head of the Olympic ruling body in March.
Much of the discussion during campaigning focused on the IOC’s need for change in its marketing strategies with several top Olympic sponsors having left in the past 12 months.
However, with Los Angeles hit by protests against immigration raids, and relations tense between state and city officials, and the U.S. government, the 2028 Games have become the major talking point in the movement that would ordinarily be focusing on next year’s Milano-Cortina Winter Games.
Coventry has long-standing ties with the United States, dating back to her time as a leading swimmer at Auburn University in Alabama. That will prove useful ahead of LA 2028, and she has said she will seek to meet with U.S. President Donald Trump to discuss the Games.
Coventry will also need to find time to help secure the long-term finances of the movement. The IOC, which generates billions of dollars in revenues each year in sponsorship and broadcasting deals for the Olympics, has secured $7.3 billion for 2025-28 and $6.2 billion for 2029-2032. More contracts are expected for both periods.
COMMERCIAL OPPORTUNITIES
Coventry is also expected to continue the IOC’s plans to expand commercial opportunities for sponsors at the Olympics with the organisation’s finances in a robust state and the privately-funded LA Olympics a good place to start.
Coventry needed only one round of voting to clinch the race to succeed Bach, beating six other candidates, making history for the African continent, with the IOC having been ruled for 131 years by European or North American men.
Her background and being the first female president will be assets in a diverse IOC membership and the international makeup of Olympic stakeholders.
On Monday she was handed the golden key to the IOC by Bach, who was the organisation’s president for 12 years.
“I am really honoured I get to walk this journey with you. I cannot wait for anything that lies ahead,” Coventry said in her address to IOC members and other Olympic stakeholders.
“I know I have the best team to support me and our movement over the next eight years.”
Coventry will hold a two-day workshop this week to get feedback from members on key IOC issues.
“Working together and consistently finding ways to strengthen and keep united our movement that will ensure that we wake up daily… to continue to inspire,” she said.
A seven-time Olympic medallist, Coventry won 200m backstroke gold at the 2004 Athens Games and in Beijing four years later.
“With her election, you have also sent a powerful message to the world: the IOC continues to evolve,” Bach said in his speech. “With Kirsty Coventry, the Olympic movement will be in the best of hands.”
-Reuters
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Penalties scored when a player accidentally touches the ball twice must be retaken, world soccer’s lawmaking body IFAB has said after Atletico Madrid’s Julian Alvarez had his spot kick disallowed in a Champions League last-16 match.
During a tense shootout with Real Madrid in March, Argentine forward Alvarez slipped and the VAR spotted that his left foot touched the ball slightly before he kicked it with his right.
Although Alvarez converted the penalty, the goal was chalked off and Atletico went on to lose the shootout and were eliminated from the Champions League.
European soccer’s governing body UEFA said the correct decision was made under the current laws but IFAB (International Football Association Board) has said that in such cases the penalty must be retaken.
Atletico Madrid v Real Valladolid – Metropolitano, Madrid, Spain – April 14, 2025 Atletico Madrid’s Julian Alvarez scores their first goal from the penalty spot REUTERS/Susana Vera/File Photo
“(When) the penalty taker accidentally kicks the ball with both feet simultaneously or the ball touches their non-kicking foot or leg immediately after the kick: if the kick is successful, it is retaken,” IFAB said in a circular.
“If the kick is unsuccessful, an indirect free kick is awarded (unless the referee plays advantage when it clearly benefits the defending team). In the case of penalties (penalty shootout), the kick is recorded as missed.”
The decision to disallow Alvarez’s penalty left Atletico boss Diego Simeone livid and the club’s fans outraged.
IFAB added that if the penalty taker deliberately kicks the ball with both feet or deliberately touches it a second time, an indirect free kick is awarded or, in the case of shootouts, it is recorded as missed.
The new procedures are effective for competitions starting on or after July 1, but IFAB said it may be used in competitions that start this month.
-Reuters
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