The Confederation of African Football (Caf) has ruled that just two of the five candidates for March’s presidential elections are eligible so far – with President Ahmad Ahmad not among them.
Mr Ahmad has been ‘declared ineligible’ given his five-year Fifa ban, although his camp has slim hope an ongoing appeal at the Court of Arbitration for Sport (Cas) could change this.
Both former Ivory Coast football federation president Jacques Anouma and current Senegal Football Association president Augustin Senghor have been authorised to contest the March elections in Morocco.
Further checks are required before either Mauritania Football Association president Ahmed Yahya and Patrice Motsepe, the South African who owns Mamelodi Sundowns, can be added to the list of candidates.
“The committee considered that further checks are necessary before a final decision,” a Caf statement said. “To this end, a hearing of these candidates will be organised in Cairo on 28 January,” it added.
The elections to determine who will lead Caf into the future are set to be held on March 12 in the Moroccan capital Rabat.
Though Mr Ahmad has been declared ineligible, a source in his camp maintains that there is a possibility the former Madagascar Football Association president, elected Caf president in 2017, could make the ballot after all.
After appealing to sport’s highest legal body Cas in December, there are hopes that the Switzerland-based organisation will make a provisional ruling on Mr Ahmad’s ban by midnight on January 11, the original deadline for Caf to announce the successful presidential candidates.
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In the event that Cas rules as early as next week in his favour, which is far more a possibility than a probability, Mr Ahmad could then appeal his exclusion from the list of presidential candidates.
It is unclear whether such an appeal would take place internally within Caf or externally at Cas once again.
Caf’s governance commission, which carried out the eligibility checks earlier this week, was only created in 2018 and so has never faced this situation before, while Caf’s statutes fail to mention any procedural protocol for such a scenario.
- ExCo candidates
The committee also authorised a total of 13 candidates to take part in the elections for the Executive Committee, with a further three needing additional verifications.
Authorised candidates:
- Wadie Jary (Tunisia)
- Mustapha Ishola Raji (Liberia)
- Djibrilla Hima Hamidou (Niger)
- Edwin Simeon- Okraku (Ghana)
- Adoum Djibrine (Chad)
- Suleiman Waberi (Djibouti)
- Isayas Jira (Ethiopia)
- Feizal Ismael Sidat (Mozambique)
- Elvis Raja Chetty (Seychelles)
- Maclean Cortez Letshwithi (Botswana)
- Kanizat Ibrahim (Comoros)
- Patricia Rajeriarison (Madagascar)
- Lawson Hogban-Latré-Kayti Edzona (Togo)
Candidates requiring additional verifications:
- Mamadou Antonio Souaré (Guinea)
- Seidou Mbombo Njoya (Cameroun)
- Arthur De Almeida E. Silva (Angola)
In addition, the candidates for the Fifa Council are subject to eligibility checks carried out by football’s world governing body and those decisions will be announced in due course.