The appointment of Ahmad Ahmad of Madagascar as president of the Confederation of African Football (CAF) was supposed to usher in a new era and fresh ideas. This was after he had ended the almost three-decade reign of Issa Hayatou.

However, Ahmad’s tenure as CAF president ended unceremoniously after he was handed a five-year ban by football’s world governing body, Fifa, on Monday.

The organisation announced that its ethics committee had found Ahmad guilty of abuses of position, offering and accepting gifts plus other benefits, and misappropriation of funds.

Ahmad’s ban follows an investigation into his conduct as CAF president between 2017 — when he was elected – and 2019. The investigation was related to the “organisation and financing of an Umrah pilgrimage to Mecca, his involvement with CAF’s dealings with sports equipment company Tactical Steel and other activities”.

“In its decision, following an extensive hearing, the adjudicatory chamber ruled that, based on information gathered by the investigatory chamber, Mr Ahmad had breached his duty of loyalty, offered gifts and other benefits, mismanaged funds and abused his position as the CAF President, pursuant to the Fifa Code of Ethics,” read a statement from Fifa.

On top of the ban, the 60-year-old has also been handed a fine amounting to 200‚000 Swiss francs (R3.38-million).

Ahmad had hoped to run for a second term, but the ban has effectively ended that ambition.

This means that come 2021, CAF will have a new president. Contenders for the seat include South Africa’s Patrice Motsepe, with Jacques Anouma of the Ivory Coast Football Federation, Augustin Senghor, president of Senegal FA, and the head of the Mauritanian federation Ahmed Yahya.

The CAF elections are scheduled to take place on 12 March 2021 and will be held in Morocco.

The fall from grace

When he toppled Hayatou in the 2017 election, pictures emerged of Ahmad hoisted in the air by his colleagues as they celebrated his victory. Now the beleaguered official has fallen from those heights and hit the floor with no cushioning. 

One of the biggest blots on the Malagasy’s tenure is when the CAF executive committee took the unprecedented decision to cede control and have Fifa general secretary Fatma Samoura parachuted in as “Fifa General Delegate for Africa”.

The decision by Fifa to deploy Samoura was announced in June 2019, on the eve of that year’s edition of the Africa Cup of Nations (Afcon). It came after increasing corruption allegations levelled against Ahmad became harder to ignore.

Fifa president Gianni Infantino and CAF vice president Amaju Pinnick decided to jointly act in an effort to patch up CAF’s reputation. The dark cloud surrounding the incumbent also forced Infantino to act because, by virtue of his position as leader of African football, Ahmad was automatically a Fifa vice president.

With Infantino trying to usher in a new era of a cleaner and corruption-free Fifa after the rot of the Sepp Blatter era, he simply could not afford to have someone holding such a high seat in Fifa fending off accusations such as those faced by Ahmad.

Now Infantino has swung the axe once and for all.

The announcement of the CAF head’s ban comes hot on heels of the ethics committee finding Yves Jean-Bart, the president of the Haitian Football Association and former Fifa standing committee member, guilty of having abused his position and sexually harassing and abusing female players, including minors. He was handed a lifetime ban. DM