The Sunday Mail
Online Reporter
SOUTHERN African bloc, Cosafa, the biggest zonal grouping under the Confederation of African Football (CAF), have shifted allegiance and have thrown their weight behind South African business mogul Patrice Motsepe’s candidature for the continental body’s president.
Cosafa had previously indicated their support for incumbent Ahmad before the Malagasy was handed a five-year suspension by Fifa from football activities on allegations of bribery and governance issues.
With Mamelodi Sundowns president Motsepe having announced his intention to run for the March 2021 CAF elections and now having been given the all-clear by Fifa’s ethics committee on Tuesday, Cosafa’s leadership convened a virtual meeting on Wednesday after which they resolved to back the South African businessman.
Cosafa on Thursday revealed in a statement the resolution taken by the 14-member bloc’s executive committee that is headed by Philip Chiyangwa.
“At a meeting of Cosafa’s executive committee on Wednesday, it was unanimously resolved that Dr Patrice Motsepe is the only candidate endorsed by the 14-member regional body to run for the CAF Presidency in March this year.
“The Cosafa executive reiterated a decision taken in 2017 that the zone should always support one of its own, in this case Dr Motsepe. In 2017, Cosafa was the first bloc to endorse eventual winner Ahmad from Madagascar.
“The executive has now resolved that member associates will back Dr Motsepe for the CAF presidency,’’ read part of the statement.
Chiyangwa who personally campaigned for Ahmad when he swept into power on March 16, 2017, deposing strong man Issa Hayatou, expressed confidence their various member associations would support the Cosafa executive’s decision.
“We are confident that once we take a unanimous decision to back one of our own, other members who want real change in CAF will join the winning party. In Dr Motsepe we have a candidate who will usher in a new era for African football,” said Chiyangwa.
Although Ahmad has indicated that he will fight his suspension through the Court of Arbitration for Sport in Lausanne, Switzerland, the Malagasy is set to have little time to campaign and enter the race, in the unlikely event that he is cleared off the slew of allegations that led to his ban.
In suspending him Fifa said Ahmad had “breached his duty of loyalty, offered gifts and other benefits, mismanaged funds and abused his position as the CAF president”.
Ahmad was also fined 200 000 Swiss francs (US$220 000) by Fifa for the misdeeds, which are related to “the organisation and financing of an Umrah pilgrimage to Mecca” and his involvement in CAF’s dealings with a sports equipment company.
In April 2019 the 60-year-old was accused of a series of offences by the former CAF secretary-general Amr Fahmy (late), who informed Fifa in a letter that Ahmad had paid bribes to directors, made personal use of CAF funds and sexually harassed a number of employees.
Two months later he was arrested in Paris while at the Fifa Congress ahead of that year’s women’s World Cup as part of a probe into corruption, but was released a day later without charge.
Ahmad’s bid to remain head of CAF was being challenged by Augustin Senghor, the president of the Senegalese Football Federation, Mauritania’s Ahmed Yahya, Ivory Coast’s Jacques Anouma before South African billionaire Motsepe, threw his hat into the ring.
In October last year former CAF senior vice-president Kwesi Nyantakyi had his lifetime ban from football for breaking Fifa bribery and corruption rules reduced to 15 years.
Nyantakyi quit his positions as Ahmad’s number two and president of Ghana’s football association two years ago after being secretly filmed accepting a $65 000 bribe from journalists posing as businessmen who wanted to invest in Ghanaian football.
