By Paul Nicholson
March 3 – CAF presidential candidate Jacques Anouma is continuing on the campaign trial in his bid for the leadership of African football despite reports that he had agreed to step away from the election at the weekend.
Having been in Morocco at the weekend Anouma has since visited Guinea and is now headed for Burkina Faso.
A release today says that Anouma has agreed to end his presidential campaign following a deal brokered by Fouzi Lekjaa, the president of the Royal Moroccan Football Federation (FRMF), at the weekend in Rabat.
That behind-closed-doors deal reportedly also has Senegalese Augustin Senghor and Ahmad Yahya from Mauritania trading the withdrawal of their election campaigns for the first and second vice presidencies roles at CAF, while Anouma would take on the undefined and non-executive role of ‘presidential advisor’ – a role that both lacks detail and statutory authority.
That would leave only South African Patrice Motsepe standing for the presidency – assuming the current Court of Arbitration for Sport hearing don’t rule in favour of banned president Ahmad Ahmad and allow him back in.
While the meetings in Morocco were hosted by Lekjaa, the forceful presence of FIFA president Gianni Infantino’s political enforcers Veron Mosengo-Omba and Mathias Grafstrom were felt as they pulled the strings for the Motsepe candidacy.
Motsepe would have been unlikely to win the CAF presidency in a ‘free’ vote of Africa’s member nations as he would face a dominant Francophone Africa that has generally held the sway.
The presence of Anouma still presents an uncomfortable obstacle to FIFA’s ambition for Motsepe and the control of Africa, assuming Anouma makes it to the ballot. With Senghor and Yahya reportedly having stood down (neither have officially announced that is what they are doing though both will wonder why they should if Anouma is still running), the vote becomes much more straightforward between FIFA’s clearly preferred candidate and Anouma.
The vote should theoretically be about who Africa prefers rather than who FIFA wants, but this and the previous CAF election that saw Ahmad win, have been far from ‘independently’ voted.
While, to be generous, it was interpreted that Anouma accepted the Lekjaa deal when he left Morocco, it isn’t that simple.
Anouma has the diplomatic backing of his Ivory Coast government (not the €15 million financial backing fake news story fed to local press by sources still to be publicly identified) and would clearly need to discuss or inform them first of any withdrawal.
Ivory Coast itself is seen a problem nation by FIFA who tried hard to get their favoured candidate Didier Drogba positioned on the local FA’s presidential ballot sheet. Drogba failed local eligibility rules (he has had no involvement and shown no interest in either the local game or the national team since he finished his playing career) and FIFA stepped in before the election was held with a Normalisation Committee to organise new elections.
Contact the writer of this story at moc.l1714173315labto1714173315ofdlr1714173315owedi1714173315sni@n1714173315osloh1714173315cin.l1714173315uap1714173315