By Kgomotso Mokoena
Johannesburg – The South African Football Association (Safa) is wary of the threat that could be posed by dirty tactics in the run-up to the Confederation of African Football (CAF) presidential elections.
Mamelodi Sundowns billionaire boss Patrice Motsepe was nominated by the national association to stand for the CAF elections that will take place on March 12 and a well-placed Safa insider said that they are ready to fight underhand tactics that seem to be at play.
Earlier this month, CAF said Motsepe and Ahmed Yahya of Mauritania will have to undergo further integrity checks before their names are allowed to appear on the ballot paper for the elections.
In the same statement, CAF confirmed that Ivory Coast’s Jacques Anouma and Senegal’s Augustin Senghor were authorised to appear on the list of candidates for the presidency.
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This has left a bitter taste in the mouth of the English-speaking block. CAF has for many years been dominated by the Francophone and north Africa regions.
“We will fight them if they come with dirty tactics. Why only these two [Motsepe and Yahya]? Why is it that the other two are not subjected to these further tests? It’s surprising that for the first time that we have a candidate from the southern region there are additional checks by the CAF ethics committee,” said the concerned Safa official.
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Safa president Danny Jordaan said they have complied with all the requirements and that they are expecting a final decision from that process either towards the middle or end of the week.
“We submitted Patrice Motsepe as our candidate for CAF president on November 9 and the second issue is that all candidates must go through an eligibility test and checks.
“For the presidency of CAF, there are two sets of compliance; one done by CAF governance committee and because CAF president is automatic vice-president of Fifa, they must go to Fifa for verifying. We wait for all the processes to be finalised.”
“In my view, Motsepe has worked very hard – he’s been to Egypt twice, Qatar and he met many leading officials of African football. He also had lunch with CAF executive committee members in Cairo. He also went to west Africa and visited officials and countries such as Nigeria, Ghana, Togo, Benin, Burkina Faso, Guinea-Conakry and then went back to Cameroon.
“In Cosafa [Council of Southern Africa Football Associations] he met with almost all presidents except for the countries that have closed their in- ternational borders. After the CHAN tournament, he will go to east Africa and then he would have virtually covered the entire continent,” said Jordaan.
*In our December 13th edition, we erroneously referred to Safa executive committee member Mxolisi Sibam as a chartered accountant. He is a member of SA Institute of Chartered Accountants as an associate general accountant. We regret the error and apologise to him.
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