Lagos – Never in the history of the Confederation of Africa Football (CAF) that it has witnessed its ongoing changes at the top of its echelon. Not even under the ‘powerful’ Issa Hayatou.
As president of CAF from 1988 to 2017, Hayatou controlled the body with his iron hand.
The Cameroonian for 29 years, dominated CAF, ruthlessly sweeping away any opposition for seven tenures that he held sway.
The first real challenge to Hayatou in his 29 years as CAF boss came in 2017 when Ahmad Ahmad with the assistance of some stakeholders including Nigeria’s Amaju Pinnick planned and executed his ouster.
A former footballer, Ahmad’s journey in football administration began in 2003 when he became the president of the Malagasy Football Federation (MFF). After watching from the outside, Ahmad started making the moves to become CAF president in 2013.
He first won a seat on the CAF Executive Committee because of a rule restricting eligibility to the CAF presidency to only members of the executive committee.
Immediately joining the CAF Executive Committee, Ahmad quietly began to pick his allies. The Malagasy started with his neighbours, members of Council of Southern Africa Football Associations (COSAFA)-South African, Botswanan, Namibian, Angolan and the Zimbabwean FAs.
His ambition to become CAF president wasn’t secret at this point but Hayatou and his camp were not bothered. In their almost 30 years at the helm of CAF, they encountered opposition which they decimated ruthlessly.
Ahmad was going to be the next victim, no big deal.
The game changer for Ahmad was to convince the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) boss, Amaju Pinnick to be on his side.
Ahmad and Pinnick first sat down to discuss this issue at the 66th FIFA Congress in May 2016. The NFF boss quickly got on board and started to rally some other federations.
Pinnick in July 2016 hosted the president of FIFA -these were allies of Pinnick. That was one of the first moves in making the FIFA boss a supporter of Ahmad.
With Ahmad absent from that meeting in Nigeria, Hayatou did not suspect any foul play.
At the CAF level, the growing Ahmad movement was still unknown until the turn of the year when several federations publicly backed Ahmad. South African and the Nigerian federations did not join in the public support of Ahmad. They held back.
Ahmad needed more federations, so with the help of Pinnick and the South African FA, he convinced some of the North African federations to join them. The likes of Egypt and Morocco did.
Despite the rumours of Nigeria’s backing Ahmad, Hayatou wasn’t sure. He asked Pinnick, but the NFF boss denied. The Cameroonian was, however, shocked when Ahmad in an interview, claimed that he had the support of Pinnick.
“NFF president Amaju Pinnick is a close ally and he supports my bid to head CAF,” Ahmad said in a February interview with an agency.
A week later, Pinnick confirmed it, saying that he believes CAF need a ‘new generation’ and also praised Ahmad’s courage in challenging Hayatou
Ahmad finally got Gianni Infantino’s support as the FIFA boss visited Zimbabwe one of the major backers of Ahmad. Infantino made that visit in the disguise of coming to celebrate Zimbabwe Action Forum (ZAF) president Dr. Philip Chiyangwa’s 58th birthday.
Pinnick, South Africa FA boss, Danny Jordaan and Liberia FA president, Musa Bility were the influential leaders from the 24 federations that were present.
It was at this meeting that strategies were planned and concluded for the election.
Hayatou was beaten but he wasn’t out yet. He went through the Cameroonian government to reach out to the Nigerian government and South African government.
Both governments made attempts to force Hayatou on their federations. They ignored and stood by Ahmad. Ahmad won. Hayatou was beaten and out for good.
That scenario cemented the relationship between Pinnick and Ahmad with the two seen in football circles as ‘brothers’ from different mothers.
When FIFA’s axe hacked down Ghana FA boss, Kwesi Nyantakyi, as CAF First Vice President in June 2018, over a corruption case, it was not difficult to replace him with Pinnick and the Nigerian happily jumped at it with all hands and to the admiration of Ahmad.
Ahmad did not stop at that. He ensured that Pinnick as well as his subordinates in the NFF were placed at every ‘juicy’ position available in CAF.
Few months ago when financial allegations were leveled against Ahmad within the CAF body, things started falling apart between the two administrators as renowned poet and writer of blessed memory, Chinua Achebe wrote in his book: ‘Things fall apart and the centre cannot hold’.
Thereafter, CAF politics crept in and the ‘falconer cannot hear the falcon any longer’ between Ahmad and Pinnick.
Ahmad, we gathered ‘fingered’ Pinnick in the allegations leveled against him as it was alleged that Pinnick was scheming to become the CAF president once the financial allegations consumed Ahmad.
This did not go down well with Ahmad and he was looking for every opportunity clip the wings of Pinnick and put him in his place.
The opportunity eventually came on Thursday, July 18, eve of the final of this year’s AFCON final and closing ceremony in Cairo, Egypt. It was at the CAF Congress and Ahmad despite pleas by FIFA President Infantino, went on to ensure that Pinnick did not return as CAF First Vice President following a litany of allegations brought against him.
However, senior CAF sources told Reuters: “Pinnick was standing up to Ahmad and taking him on in many issues and Ahmad felt it right to get rid of him.”
We gathered that Pinnick was opposing Ahmad in a crunch meeting by CAF executive members earlier in the day (Thursday, July 18) about the woman FIFA has planted in CAF to oversee the affairs of the Association.
Pinnick, we learnt, was against the motion to either agree that the woman leads CAF executives in decisions making.
Ahmad has in the space of three months fired his General Secretary, who reported him to FIFA, his Finance Director and now Pinnick.
“It has been an excellent opportunity to serve as the number two football administrator in the entire African continent,” Pinnick said in a statement, when it became glaring that he would not return as CAF first Vice.
“My commitment to the game is perpetual while my support for my colleagues in the Executive Committee remains steadfast.”
The positions of First, Second and Third Vice Presidents are appointed by CAF President and not elective.
Pinnick’s post has now been taken up by Constance Omari of Democratic Republic of Congo (DR of C), while Fouzi Lekjaa from Morocco is now the Second Vice President.
South Africa Football Federation (SAFA) President, Danny Jordaan has been appointed the CAF Third Vice President.
Jordaan was widely considered to have a bigger profile than the Nigeria FA boss after he organised the hugely successful 2010 World Cup for the very first time in Africa.
It was learnt that Infantino asked Ahmad “to reconsider” his decision to remove Pinnick, but the CAF boss it was also learnt was not prepared to be undermined by lieutenants he previously trusted.
“Pinnick was a changed man days leading up to his sack,” a top official said. The man that oozes arrogance was suddenly as humble as a chicken.
“In the past week he begged everybody and anything to ensure he was not ‘disgraced’, but the President was unmoved.”
We learnt that he made several overtures to Ahmad to soft pedal on firing him.
Only penultimate week CAF disowned claims by the Pinnick-led NFF that $565,473 was spent for them to attend a CAF Congress in Egypt in 2015. But NFF denied this claim saying the body spent a meager $19,000 on their members that attended the congress.
Pinnick, after his dismissal still has to face corruption charges back home in Nigeria.
The Nigerian government has brought a 17-count charge against him and four other top NFF officials.
The ‘free fall’ from grace to grass continued for him after he was dropped from all CAF standing committees including the all-powerful AFCON Organising Committee, which he headed.
A top CAF official exclusively said:”Amaju has been stripped of his membership of all CAF committees including being President of the very important AFCON Organising Committee.
“He is now just an ordinary floor member on the CAF Executive Committee.”
Besides previously holding down the Presidency of the AFCON Organising Committee, Pinnick was also a member of the Emergency Committee, which is widely regarded as the engine-room of the continental ruling body.
We further gathered that two of the other NFF officials– Seyi Akinwunmi, Shehu Dikko – may also suffer the same fate.
Akinwunmi is a member of the Organising Committee for Youth Africa Cup of Nations U17, U20 and U23, while Shehu Dikko is on the Organising Committee for Inter-Clubs Competition and Club Licensing System.
According to our source, CAF are currently reworking their various standing committees to be more effective and take in persons of proven integrity.
FIFA will next month take over the running of CAF in what is seen as a compromise agreement with Infantino, the president of world soccer’s ruling body, for Ahmad to stay in power.
It would be recalled that Ahmad was detained by French police in June and questioned over a sportswear deal between CAF and a French company in which the African body is said to have paid exorbitant prices for equipment it could have got much cheaper directly from the manufacturers.
FIFA is sending its Senegalese Secretary General, Fatma Samoura on a nine-month secondment from August 1 to overhaul CAF in accordance with an 11-point plan that includes possible changes to the format of competitions, a review of refereeing and a task force to improve stadium security.
He will also oversee a review of CAF’s judicial bodies, full transparency of money flows and implementation of good governance principles. CAF has been plagued by a series of scandals in recent times.
“We all suffer when we see what is going on here (CAF),” Infantino told the presidents of Africa’s member associations as they gathered for a General Assembly in Egypt on Thursday, July 18.
The FIFA president also addressed comments made to BBC Sport by former FIFA President, Sepp Blatter, who said that Samoura move flouted the statutes of football’s world governing body while also representing a ‘new aspect of colonialism.’
“What does it mean colonialisation?” the 49-year-old asked. “I don’t know. It’s not part of my vocabulary. But I do know what it means to team up.”
For Pinnick, this is not the best of time for him in football administration.
The post Pinnick: Victim Of CAF Politics? appeared first on Independent Newspapers Nigeria.
Source: Independent
CLICK HERE TO READ FULL CONTENT
Brought to you by: RIDBAY | WEBSITE DESIGN & DIGITAL MARKETING
