PANAPRESS
Panafrican News Agency
Ethiopia: Ahmad dethrones Issa Hayatou from CAF plum job (News analysis by Vincent Obi, PANA Editor)
Addis Ababa, Ethiopia (PANA) - With 34 votes to 20, the youthful Madagascan Football Federation Chief, Ahmad Ahmad, on Thursday re-wrote the CAF history book, dethroning the long-serving Cameroonian Issa Hayatou as the president of Africa's football governing body, at an election held in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
Although it was a tough election challenge, no one gave Ahmad a chance over Hayatou, the Guru who held sway at the top for nearly three decades.
Ahmad called himself the change African football needed during the electioneering campaign, knowing too well that, on paper, he was a football "dwarf" to Hayatou.
But delegates, craving for reforms and a change from the dictatorial tendencies of Hayatou, voted the Cameroonian out of office, an unlikely scenario some years back.
The win will afford Ahmad to provide African soccer with a new direction for the first time since the late 1980s and defeat for Hayatou has effectively removed him as president in Africa and also as a FIFA vice president and a member of its ruling council. Hayatou was seeking office for the eighth term.
Soccer pundits believe that Hayatou's defeat may have been caused by, among other things, the threat of a criminal prosecution as the Egyptian Competition Authority has recommended that he and his secretary general be referred to court over a marketing and television rights deal worth a reported US$1 billion.
Also, the FIFA Audit Committee has filed a complaint with the FIFA Ethics Committee requesting the disqualification of Issa Hayatou because he was charged in criminal proceedings for misdemeanor.
In November 2010, he was alleged to have taken bribes in the 1990s regarding the award of the World Cup television rights.
Besides all these, Hayatou has had a full taste of the pudding. He grabbed the CAF presidency in 1988 and ruled undefeated for 27 straight years. Before this, he became Secretary General of the Cameroon Football Association at just 28 years of age, and Chair of the FA in 1986.
As chair, he was chosen the same year to sit on the CAF Executive Committee and following the retirement of Ethiopia's Yidnekatchew Tessema from the CAF presidency in August 1987, Hayatou was elected as the fifth president in the body's history.
With all these charges against him, Hayatou's fall from office seemed imminent months to the polls.
The 70-year-old Hayatou has therefore become another veteran soccer leader (just like FIFA's Sepp Blatter) pushed out by a desire for change emanating from the 2015 FIFA corruption scandal.
Ahmad's antecedents are not well known across the continent except that he was a sportsman who later became the President of the Madagascan Football Federation.
As the new CAF president, Ahmad now has the opportunity to bring about the change he has campaigned for and move African football forward, including gaining more chances for Africa in an expanded FIFA World Cup.
Below is a list of all the CAF presidents so far:
Abdel Aziz Abdallah Salem (1957-1958)
Abdel Aziz Moustafa (1958-1968)
Abdel Halim Muhammad (1968-1972)
Yidnekatchew Tessema (1972-1987)
Abdel Halim Muhammad (1987-1988)
Issa Hayatou (1988-2017)
Ahmad Ahmad (2017 to date).
-0- PANA VAO/AR 16March2017
Although it was a tough election challenge, no one gave Ahmad a chance over Hayatou, the Guru who held sway at the top for nearly three decades.
Ahmad called himself the change African football needed during the electioneering campaign, knowing too well that, on paper, he was a football "dwarf" to Hayatou.
But delegates, craving for reforms and a change from the dictatorial tendencies of Hayatou, voted the Cameroonian out of office, an unlikely scenario some years back.
The win will afford Ahmad to provide African soccer with a new direction for the first time since the late 1980s and defeat for Hayatou has effectively removed him as president in Africa and also as a FIFA vice president and a member of its ruling council. Hayatou was seeking office for the eighth term.
Soccer pundits believe that Hayatou's defeat may have been caused by, among other things, the threat of a criminal prosecution as the Egyptian Competition Authority has recommended that he and his secretary general be referred to court over a marketing and television rights deal worth a reported US$1 billion.
Also, the FIFA Audit Committee has filed a complaint with the FIFA Ethics Committee requesting the disqualification of Issa Hayatou because he was charged in criminal proceedings for misdemeanor.
In November 2010, he was alleged to have taken bribes in the 1990s regarding the award of the World Cup television rights.
Besides all these, Hayatou has had a full taste of the pudding. He grabbed the CAF presidency in 1988 and ruled undefeated for 27 straight years. Before this, he became Secretary General of the Cameroon Football Association at just 28 years of age, and Chair of the FA in 1986.
As chair, he was chosen the same year to sit on the CAF Executive Committee and following the retirement of Ethiopia's Yidnekatchew Tessema from the CAF presidency in August 1987, Hayatou was elected as the fifth president in the body's history.
With all these charges against him, Hayatou's fall from office seemed imminent months to the polls.
The 70-year-old Hayatou has therefore become another veteran soccer leader (just like FIFA's Sepp Blatter) pushed out by a desire for change emanating from the 2015 FIFA corruption scandal.
Ahmad's antecedents are not well known across the continent except that he was a sportsman who later became the President of the Madagascan Football Federation.
As the new CAF president, Ahmad now has the opportunity to bring about the change he has campaigned for and move African football forward, including gaining more chances for Africa in an expanded FIFA World Cup.
Below is a list of all the CAF presidents so far:
Abdel Aziz Abdallah Salem (1957-1958)
Abdel Aziz Moustafa (1958-1968)
Abdel Halim Muhammad (1968-1972)
Yidnekatchew Tessema (1972-1987)
Abdel Halim Muhammad (1987-1988)
Issa Hayatou (1988-2017)
Ahmad Ahmad (2017 to date).
-0- PANA VAO/AR 16March2017
