The Confederation of African Football
voted on Tuesday to remove an age limit on its officials, paving the way
for Issa Hayatou to stay on as president.
All 54 countries at the organisation’s
congress in Cairo agreed to change the statutes which previously stopped
officials serving past the age of 70.
It was proposed CAF should bring its rules in line with those of world football governing body FIFA.
Hayatou, 68, will now be able to stand for another term in office in 2017.
His current mandate ends in two years and he is seeking four more years until at least 2021, when he turns 75.
The rule change follows success in recent years in adapting the statutes to limit potential opponents to Hayatou’s rule.
CAF previously brought in a rule that
candidates for its presidency can only come from the ranks of its own
executive committee, a tight-knit club closely controlled by Hayatou.
FIFA does not have the same restriction.
Cameroon-born Hayatou, a former athletics
official, is the longest serving senior member in FIFA structures,
where he acts as vice-president, and has had few serious challengers for
power in Africa since first winning election in 1988.
Meanwhile, Ivory Coast’s Jacques Anouma has he lost his seat on the exalted FIFA Executive Committee.
The former president of Ivorian football
federation got only 20 votes at the election conducted as part of the
37th CAF Ordinary General Assembly on Tuesday in Egypt. He has long lost
his seat on the CAF Executive Committee.
Tarek Bouchamaoui from Tunisia took 54
votes, with the president of DR Congo football federation, Constant
Omari Selemani, second with 34 votes. Both will sit on the FIFA panel
for the next four years.
Six members of the CAF Executive
Committee were also re-elected, for the 2015-2019 period. Bouchamaoui
was re-elected unopposed for the North Zone, while Guinean Almamy Kabele
Camara retained his seat in West A Zone and Ghanaian Kwesi Nyantakyi
was also unopposed for Zone West B, into which Nigeria falls.
Selemani retained his seat in the Central
Zone, and former Tanzania captain Leodegar Tenga was also unopposed
(Hassan Waberi of Djibouti withdrew) in Central-East, as former Zambia
captain Kalusha Bwalya benefitted similar fortune in Southern zone
0 comments:
Post a Comment