Fifa President Gianni Infantino has defended the decision by the world’s football mother body to send its General Secretary Fatma Samoura on a nine-month secondment to the troubled Confederation of African Football (CAF).
In a move to help CAF deal with the governance challenges, Fifa is sending Samoura as a High Commissioner to CAF.
The move followed corruption allegations against CAF President Ahmad Ahmad, which he has denied and other administrative bungling that has taken place at CAF.
Addressing the 54-member CAF General Assembly on Thursday morning in Cairo, Egypt, Infantino says all they need is to given time to allow CAF to turn around the status quo.
Infantino has also rejected reports that this move has got a colonialist approach towards African football as it has been alleged that Fifa wants to run it remotely.
Former Fifa President Sepp Blatter and other leading football officials on the continent, have made similar claims on this move. The Swiss-Italian is laughing off these claims.
Infantino has also refuted reports that this is a move to drive Samoura away from Fifa. The Senegalese was appointed at Fifa following the election of Infantino into his current position in 2015.
Infantino says they are going to target three big areas in CAF governance and this would be done by going through a general, forensic audit and financial audits.
He says good governance and quality competitions are the areas which they will focus on.
Ahmad has also been complaining that he’s been a victim of leaks coming from within his organisation and he’s blamed this on those he claims are working against him.
The 2018/2019 CAF Champions League final is yet to be concluded after Wydad Casablanca of Morocco walked off the pitch against Esperance of Tunisia and that matter is before the Court of Arbitration for Sport in Switzerland.
Further allegations of fraud have recently been made against Ahmad, who was detained and questioned by French authorities in June as part of a corruption investigation.
??| Presenting today’s 41ST CAF Ordinary General Assembly. pic.twitter.com/4s2dirnMIM
— CAF (@CAF_Online) July 18, 2019
– Report by Velile Mnyandu
