The trial of former Confederation of African Football (CAF) president Issa Hayatou on charges of violating local anti-monopoly rules was on Monday postponed by Egypt’s Economic Misdemeanors Court to April 16.

Hayatou is jointly charged with former Secretary General Hicham El Amrani by Egypt authorities who accuse the duo of committing crime when signing a multi-million dollar deal with sports agency Lagardere in June 2015.

The Egyptian Competition Authority (ECA) took the matter to court in January 2017 where they sued the continent’s football governing body for the suspension of the contract, maintaining that it violates the Egyptian anti-monopoly laws.

Caf stresses that the allegations accusing it of selling rights without opening them for due tender are incorrect.

Egypt started to investigate the Lagardere deal in June 2016 months after the failure of an Egyptian broadcaster, Presentation, to secure from Caf the right to broadcast matches.

The company were reported to have tried to buy from Lagardère a sub-licence to broadcast matches in the Middle East and north-Africa region, but Lagardère sold those regional rights to the large, Qatari-owned broadcaster BeIn Sports.

After that, Presentation reportedly made a bid directly to Caf, said to be $1.2bn, to buy the worldwide rights, but Caf had already sold these to Lagardère.

Lagardère Sports maintains that its 2017-28 contract with Caf was a fully legal renewal of its previous 2008-16 deal, and rejected the claims that it breaches Egyptian competition law.