(ATR) Confederation of African Football chief Issa Hayatou says CAF federations are right behind Sepp Blatter’s quest for a fifth term at the helm of world football.
Speaking at the CAF Congress in Cairo on Tuesday, the Cameroonian IOC member - a staunch Blatter loyalist - said Africa’s 54 member federations "guarantee their votes" for the Swiss at the presidential election in Zurich on May 29.
His comments were greeted with a round of applause from officials present from Africa’s football associations.
"I am thus tempted to say to candidate Blatter that he is preaching to converts here at CAF. His actions in favour of Africa speak for him. To us, he is still the man of the moment," Hayatou told the congress.
"Dear Sepp, Africa is comfortable having you. Africa stays with you!"
At a congress reception on Monday night, the 68-year-old Hayatou also drove home the message that Blatter was the man to lead FIFA for another four years. He made similar comments at the CAF Congress in Sao Paulo last summer.
"I want to reiterate that here in Africa you are never on some strange or hostile territory," Hayatou said last night.
His comments were music to the ears of the 79-year-old FIFA incumbent, who addressed the CAF Congress on Tuesday.
But Hayatou’s remarks were clearly designed to rebuff the advances of Blatter’s three presidential challengers - Prince Ali Bin Al-Hussein of Jordan, Dutch FA president Michael van Praag and former Portugal star Luis Figo.
The trio are also at the Cairo congress lobbying for support on the sidelines of the congress.
Hayatou’s comments suggest they have a lot of work to do to convince African FAs to vote for them.
Unlike at the UEFA Congress two weeks’ ago, they were not given the chance to pitch their manifestos to delegates.
The 54 federations today voted to ditch an age limit from CAF’s statutes, a move designed to pave the way for Hayatou to keep a grip on African football beyond his seventh term. Now the 70 age limit has been scrapped, he could be re-elected when his current mandate ends in 2017.
Reported by Mark Bisson
20 Years at #1: Your best source of news about the Olympics is AroundTheRings.com, for subscribers only.
Recent Articles
Sinner-Alcaraz, the duel that came to succeed the three phenomenons
Beyond the final result, Roland Garros left the feeling that the Italian and the Spaniard will shape the great duel that came to help us through the duel for the end of the Federer-Nadal-Djokovic era.
Table tennis: Brazil’s Bruna Costa Alexandre will be Olympic and Paralympic in Paris 2024
She is the third in her sport and the seventh athlete to achieve it in the same edition; in Santiago 2023 she was the first athlete with disabilities to compete at the Pan American level and won a medal.
Rugby 7s: the best player of 2023 would only play the medal match in Paris
Argentinian Rodrigo Isgró received a five-game suspension for an indiscipline in the circuit’s decisive clash that would exclude him until the final or the bronze match; the Federation will seek to make the appeal successful.
Rhonex Kipruto, owner of the world record for the 10000 meters on the road, was suspended for six years
The Kenyan received the maximum sanction for irregularities in his biological passport and the Court considered that he was part of a system of “deliberate and sophisticated doping” to improve his performance. He will lose his record and the bronze medal at the Doha World Cup.
Katie Ledecky spoke about doping Chinese swimmers: “It’s difficult to go to Paris knowing that we’re going to compete with some of these athletes”
The American, a seven-time Olympic champion, referred to the case of the 23 positive controls before the Tokyo Games that were announced a few weeks ago and shook the swimming world. “I think our faith in some of the systems is at an all-time low,” he said.
