controversy over status changes

This is an internal matter that the Confederation of African Football would have gladly done without. While the pan-African body is due to hold its 46th General Assembly on 10 October in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo, it sent a letter to all its member associations dated 8 September. A document signed by the secretary of CAF, General Véron Mosengo-Omba, and entitled: ” Proposals for amendment of the CAF statutes and the implementing regulations of the statutes, as well as the internal regulations of the CAF General Assembly, presented by the national associations. »

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A document in which several federations are said to have formulated requests for modifications to the CAF statutes. The CAF administration has received proposals for amendments to its statutes from several federations with a view to submitting them during the General Assembly of the body which will take place on October 10 in Kinshasa. “, indicates the letter which cites in particular the federations of Botswana, Comoros, Gabon, Equatorial Guinea, Liberia, Mauritania, and Niger.

Two amendments requested on the CAF statutes

In a document that I was able to consult Sport News Africathese member associations would have formulated two requests:

• Amend Article 18 paragraph 9 to remove the age limit criterion for being a candidate or sitting on the Executive Committee or the CAF Presidency.
• Amend Article 18 paragraph 13 (a) removing the Zonal Union groupings used for the election of African members of the FIFA Council.

In short, candidates for the presidency of CAF as well as for the Executive Committee could present themselves or apply for a new mandate, while the current statutes indicate that ” at the date of the election, candidates for the positions of President and members of the CAF Executive Committee must be Bona Fide members of their national associations and not exceeding the age of 70. “An age that some federation presidents are approaching, while the current CAF president, Patrice Motsepe, is 62 years old. With the age limit, he could for example only run for two more terms.

As for the elections to the FIFA Council, the elections are held by Zonal Union. Each zone has a representative on the FIFA Council and the candidates for these positions can only be elected by the presidents of the member associations of their grouping zone. Thus, the presidents of French-speaking federations can only vote for a French-speaking representative, the English-speaking ones for the English-speaking grouping, and so on.

The distribution of positions on the FIFA Council is currently as follows:

• Category 1: Two members from Group 1 Francophone
• Category 2: Two members from Group 2 Anglophone
• Category 3: Two members from Group 3 Arabic/Portuguese/Spanish speaking
• Category 4: One female member elected from among female candidates, regardless of linguistic groupings

The change in the grouping by zonal unions would mean that all presidents could vote for candidates outside their grouping, or that candidates would no longer be limited to a grouping. Several candidates from the same grouping could be elected to the FIFA Council, while at the same time groupings could no longer be represented.

Equatorial Guinea contests any request for modification

Except that in fact, some member associations cited in the letter do not acknowledge having made these requests for amendments. The first to react was Venancio Tomas Ndong Micha. The president of the Equatorial Guinean Football Federation sent a letter to the secretary general of CAF to indicate that his federation was not the originator of such requests.

” I am writing to present the Equatorial Guinean Football Federation's disagreement with part of the content of the document sent to the CAF Executive Council on September 8, 2024 signed by you (…) In this document, there are amendments presented by the Equatorial Guinean Football Federation (…) By this letter, we confirm that the Equatorial Guinean Football Federation has not submitted any amendments to the CAF administration for the 46th CAF Ordinary General Assembly to be held on Thursday, October 10, 2024 in Kinshasa “, he denounces.

Enough to sow doubt about this document sent by the CAF general secretary and the intended objective. Contacted, a federation president, whose body is not mentioned in the letter, is surprised by these two requests for amendments and questions their intentions. The press release from the Equatorial Guinean Football Federation has come to sow doubt and now, he questions the originality of the attachments included in this document which risks being talked about before the CAF General Assembly.