Africa will be choosing its representatives for the FIFA Council positions in March 2025 (women)and already battle lines have been drawn for the single slot available for Women representative.

Big hitters will be pitted against each other as they try to win the vote to have some measure of influence at the world’s governing body.

In the Women position we have three ladies of substance ,The current Fifa Council member representive from African Madam Isha Johansen of Sierra Leone who will be seeking to recapture the seat will battle it out with current CAF 5^th Vice President Madam Kanizat Ibrahim from Comoros and Madam Lydia Nsekera from Burundi who tries to recapture the seat she lost to Isha Johansen in 2021 in Morocco.

A short Bio of Kanizat Ibrahim(Comoros)

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The 49 year old She is the 5th vice president of  CAF , making her the first female vice-president and the president of the organizing committee for women’s football of CAF.

After the Comoros Football Federation was plunged into a governance  FIFA) decided in March 2019 to appoint a Normalisation Committee for the FFC, which would be responsible for managing day-to-day affairs, revising the statutes, the Electoral Code and the Code of Ethics of the Federation and organizing transparent elections. Ibrahim Kanizat was appointed as the chair by Kanizat Ibrahim starting her duties on November 12, 2019.

 Her tenure was through to 30 September 2020, but was extended by five months by FIFA due to Covid-19  restrictions. The committee however ultimately ended their tenure after accomplishing their objective of organizing an elections of which Said Ali Said Athoumani was elected as the new FFC president.

Kanizat won CAF elective Congress by a landslide collecting 35 votes to defeat Togo’s Lawson Hogban Edzona and Madagascar’s Patricia Rajeriarison,with nine ad eight votes, respectively.

After her elections as female representative in the CAF Executive Committee she was nominated as the 5^th CAF Vice President under President Patrice Motsepe.

Her appointment also made her the first woman vice-president in the history of CAF. On May 18, 2021, she was appointed president of the organizing committee for women’s football of CAF succeeding Isha Johansen.

Isha Johansen Bio

In 2013, Johansen 58, stood in the Sierra Leone Football Association’s presidential election to ruffle the feathers of men in the game, but after a FIFA-backed committee disqualified all of her opponents – two for links to the gambling industry, and another for failing a residency stipulation – she won, unopposed.

SLFA  divisions were laid bare in 2016 when Johansen was arrested on charges of corruption, alongside her vice president and secretary general.

In a drawn out legal and political saga, the sport’s governing body FIFA refused to accept the removal from office that would accompany her indictment, and suspended Sierra Leone from world football, citing government interference.

Only after Johansen’s acquittal on all charges, and reinstatement as SLFA President, was the suspension lifted.

Her  persistence in football management led Johansen to the top table in World football, with her election to the FIFA council in 2021, she was elected into the FIFA Council after defeating Burundian Lydia Nsekera, who had held the position since 2013, by 28 votes to four during the CAF General Assembly     in Rabat,Morocco.

This made her the first West African woman elected into the council and the first Sierra Leonean to join the 37-person team.

Lydia Nsekera Bio

57 year old Lydia Nsekera is a Burundian football manager n 2004, she was elected President of the Burundi Football Federation (BFF), becoming the first woman to hold this position in the country and even in Africa.

A position she held until 2013. In parallel to her functions within the BFF, she played other roles. She was notably a member of the “Women and Sport” Commission of the National Olympic Committee (NOC) of Burundi from 2001 to 2006. She was also a member of the “Women’s Football Commission of the Confederation of African Football” from 2006 to 2012.

In 2008, she was appointed as a member of the organizing committee of the Olympic Football Tournaments in Beijing, China, as well as a member of the organizing committee of the 2008 FIFA World Cup in Chile.

 After joining the International Olympic Committee in 2009, she became in 2012 the first female member of the Executive Committee of the International Federation of Association Football (FIFA) since its creation in 1904, paving the way for several women to join the institution.

2012, she made history in world football. She was co-opted, then elected in 2013 by the FIFA Congress as a member of the FIFA Executive Committee. She thus became the first woman to access this committee since the existence of FIFA in 1904.

Within the organization, she headed the Committee for “Women’s Football” and the “FIFA Women’s World Cup” from 2013 to 2016. In 2017, she was appointed vice-president