A dramatic turn in the election of the president of the African Football Confederation (CAF): Fifa would urge three of the contenders to line up behind the fourth, the South African Patrice Motsepe, we learned on Monday from sources close to the candidates at eleven polling days.A four-way match that would turn into a duel? According to these sources, Augustin Senghor (Senegal) and Ahmed Yahya (Mauritania) would be ready to accept the proposal of the International Football Federation: if they renounce to appear, on March 12, to leave the stage to the South African billionaire, supported by Gianni Infantino, the president of Fifa, they will be 1st and 2nd vice-presidents.
Jacques Anouma (Côte d’Ivoire), the fourth candidate, would be offered a post of adviser to the president.
Contacted by AFP, Fifa had not reacted mid-afternoon Monday.
“The idea of Fifa is to put together the four candidates, under the aegis of Morocco, so that they agree on a common program, and to designate among them a single candidate”, explains an adviser of the ‘one of them.
“Motsepe has the preference of Fifa, who wants someone new, not involved in the old management, to attract new sponsors, investors and to give CAF a better image after all that has happened “, continues this source.
– Decision this weekend –
The African football government has indeed been shaken. The outgoing president, the Malagasy Ahmad Ahmad, was suspended for five years by Fifa in November on suspicion of corruption.
For many observers, he fell when he tried to emancipate himself from Fifa and its general secretary, Fatma Samoura, who led a six-month mission at the head of CAF to put it in order.
The choice of Motsepe, a very busy billionaire, makes some fear that the Senegalese will become the effective leader of CAF.
“Motsepe has the worst profile of the four, it would be a puppet,” Bacary Cissé, boss of the Senegalese sports weekly Record, told AFP. “Fifa wants to parachute him on African football”.
The decision on whether or not to maintain each candidacy has not yet been taken, each candidate having left Morocco to return to his country and discuss with the authorities. They must meet next weekend in Nouakchott (Mauritania) during the CAN-U20 final, to make a choice.
For an Ivorian source, this “Rabat pact” is a fool’s game. “We put people in a room, in hostile territory, asking them to make a decision, then they answer yes, then they go home,” one explains.
“But we will wait for their return and for them to make a statement, because what was said there is no longer valid, it is blackmail”, continues this source.
– Spy movie –
If Senghor and Yahya seem close to giving in, according to corroborating sources, Jacques Anouma could go alone against Motsepe.
Ivorian President Alassane Ouattara has not yet spoken, but he has released 15 million euros for his compatriot’s campaign and could choose to play the ballot.
The election would then take a new turn, from a four-way to a duel: Motsepe, the choice of Fifa, against Anouma, the choice of a CAF jealous of its independence.
This “Rabat pact” took shape in a luxury hotel in the Moroccan capital. Like in a spy movie.
The three West African candidates had an appointment there last weekend to find a consensus, at the invitation of the president of the Moroccan federation, Fouzi Lekjaa.
The president of the Egyptian Federation, Amr El Ganainy, and Moroccan diplomats were also present, according to several participants, as well as two special envoys from Infantino, the Congolese (DRC) Véron Mosengo-Omba, director of the associations of Fifa, and the Swedish Mathias Grafström, Deputy Secretary General.
In Africa, many footballers fear that a Fifa puppet ends up on the CAF throne, rather than a true Pan-African president.
“Africa is Fifa’s playground with the complicity of some Africans,” regrets Thierry Roland Enom, one of the leaders of the Cameroonian Federation.