The FIFA Audit Committee filed a complaint with the FIFA Ethics Committee requesting the disqualification of Issa Hayatou, the historic president of the African Confederation (CAF), as he was charged in a criminal proceedings for misdemeanor.
Everything would obey the presumed practices unclear, with suspicion of corruption, in the adjudication of television rights.
Issa Hayatou, the Cameroonian leader, however, will appear next Thursday to his umpteenth re-election as president of the CAF.
Precisely, this situation has been the excuse given by the man who replaced Joseph Blatter to FIFA’s command on an interim basis, after being suspended by the Ethics Committee in 2015, to avoid sitting on the dock in the city of Cairo (where the headquarters of the CAF is located).
The veteran director (70 years), the first vice president of the new Advisory Council of the body presided by Gianni Infantino, has been since late last week in Addis Ababa (Ethiopia), where on Thursday 16 with the election of the new president.
In addition to Issa Hayatou, the other candidate is the president of the Federation of Madagascar, Ahmad Ahmad.
Angel Villar, UEFA vice-president, will be present in the Ethiopian capital on behalf of President Alexander Ceferin.
With a trajectory marked by the permanent shadow of the corruption, Hayatou crosses by the most delicate moment during its 29 years to the control of the CAF.
A thorough investigation by the Egyptian Competition Authority (AEC) earlier this year uncovered the alleged wrongful practices of both the Cameroonian leader and his secretary-general, Hisham Amrani, in awarding the rights to broadcast all The competitions sponsored by the CAF, case of the African Cup or Champions League.
Complete research the aforementioned agency, which reports to the African Commission on Free Competition (COMESA), denounced two leaders and asked the Egyptian authorities to immediately revoke the long-term contract (12 years) signed in 2016 with the French company ‘ Lagardère Sports’ in the face of the total lack of compliance with the laws for the protection of international free competition by the CAF.
The research carried out during more than half a year by the ACS found that the French telecommunications company had been benefiting, presumably, from the favors of Issa Hayatou, who previously awarded him a finger, when it was called ‘Sport Five’ , Two other contracts.
The Cairo Criminal Court admitted last week the prosecution’s request to try Hayatou on charges of violating competition law and to promote monopoly after confirming that CAF had awarded the new contract for the Television rights to ‘Lagardère Sports’ for a value of 938 million euros, concealing from its own Executive Committee the existence of a second offer, made by the company ‘Presentation Sport’, which amounted to more than 200 million euros Presented by the company owned by Jean Claude Darmoun, then an intimate friend of the president of the CAF.
In the face of the seriousness of the incriminating evidence against Issa Hayatou, the FIFA Audit Committee sent a formal complaint to the Ethics Committee’s investigation office on 8 March in an attempt to obtain its disqualification and, therefore, its exclusion Of the electoral race that will culminate this Thursday.
The petition, however, was dismissed in the face of the extreme closeness of the trial and in response to the presumption of innocence of an Issa Hayatou awaiting the dock of the accused as soon as he returned to Cairo. The scandal is served.
