Issa Hayatou, a symbol of the old FIFA, was finally deposed as the president of the Confederation of African Football after a reign of 29 years. The Cameroonian lost to Ahmad Ahmad, thepresident of the Madagascar Football Association, in a vote of 34-20 of CAF members at its congress in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
As the senior member of FIFA’s executive committee, Hayatouserved as interim FIFA president after Sepp Blatter was removed for violating FIFA ethics rules. In 2002, Hayatou had run against Blatter but lost.
Hayatou was always acontroversial figure within FIFA.
He was reprimanded in December 2011 by the International Olympic Committee, of which he is a member, for receiving payments from FIFA’s former marketingagency, ISL — payments he said were to cover the cost of a CAF 40th anniversary party.
(Former FIFA president Joao Havelange, former Conmebol president Nicolas Leoz andHavelange’s son-in-law, Ricardo Teixeira, were found to have pocketed millions of dollars in bribes in the ISL scandal.)
Hayatou was also linked to charges of bribery related tothe award of the 2022 World Cup to Qatar. Phaedra Almajid, a media officer for the Qatar bid team, said she attended a meeting in 2010 at which Hayatou and two other FIFA executive committeemembers Jacques Anouma and Amos Adamu (later suspended in the wake of a Sunday Times sting) were offered $1.5 million to vote for Qatar. She later retracted the claims, saying she hadfabricated them in order to get revenge on her Qatari bosses after losing her job, but she has since said she was
Hayatou remained close to Asian soccer authorities and threw his support and that of CAF behind Bahraini Sheikh Salman bin Ebrahimal-Khalifa in the 2016 election to replace Blatter. While Sheikh Salman entered the race as the favorite, he lost to UEFA’s Gianni Infantino on the second ballot. The surprise was that theSwiss Infantino managed to garner support in both Africa and Asia, and that signaled the beginning of the end for Hayatou.
Hayatou was seeking an eighth term as CAF head and to make itdifficult for rivals to enter the race instituted a CAF rule that required that a president candidate serve on the CAF executive committee.
Ahmad, a former minister of sports and offisheries in Madagascar, met that qualification. Infantino was in Addis Ababa and viewed as a silent supporter of Ahmad.
Infantino attended an event in Harare, Zimbabwe, to which Hayatouwasn’t invited in March. It was supposed to be a birthday party for Zimbabwe Football Association boss Phillip Chiyangwa — but was viewed as Ahmad campaign stop.
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“When you doyour party, invitations are sent at your own discretion,” Harare businessman and event organizer Chamu Chiwanza told BBC Sport whenasked about the Hayatou snub. “I’m not saying he’s not close to the CAF president but if you’re not friends, why would you invite them just because they have a position?”
Hayatou’s lossmeans he is off the FIFA council, the successor body to the infamous executive committee. Of the 24 members who were supposed to vote in 2010 on the 2018 and 2022 World Cup hosts, just three nowremain on the FIFA council. Of the rest, most have been banned, indicted or reprimanded.
Hayatou’s troubles aren’t over, though. CAF general secretary Hicham El Amrani and Hayatouface possible criminal charges in Egypt, where CAF is based, in connection with a complaint against CAF over a commercial agreement with Lagardere Sports for $1 billion.
Hayatou, 70,underwent a kidney transplant operation in 2015 during his terms as interim FIFA president.