In an interview given to AFP Tuesday, March 2, the Ivorian Jacques Anouma believes that the willingness lent to Fifa to find a consensus around the South African Patrice Motsepe to chair the Confederation of African Football (CAF) is only an “agreement in principle”.
The election of the next president of CAF should not be a long quiet river as Fifa hopes. While the four candidates in contention had visibly agreed last weekend on a distribution of posts with the South African billionaire Patrice Motsepe as president, as Fifa would like, the Ivorian candidate Jacques Anouma, in an interview with AFP given on Tuesday, March 2, believes that it is only an “agreement in principle” and considers the method “not too democratic”.
“Our countries must accept and validate it. We have given ourselves until March 5 for this agreement to be validated,” said the Ivorian candidate. According to him, the “minutes that were initiated” at the end of this meeting in Rabat “should not be known by anyone”. “I am shocked. It is more a distribution of posts than an agreement to move towards unity. We have the impression that we have sacrificed Africa on the altar of our personal ambitions,” says Anouma, a former member of the Fifa executive committee.
“If my voters, my base and the authorities tell me ‘we’re not interested, let’s go to elections,’ I would not run away from my responsibilities,” Anouma said. “What is happening is not too democratic, we are imposing a scheme on the voters. Who tells you that they are takers? “, he adds. Jacques Anouma is scheduled to meet with the President of the Republic of Côte d’Ivoire, Alassane Ouattara.
According to sources close to the candidates, Augustin Senghor (Senegal) and Ahmed Yahya (Mauritania) would be ready to accept the proposal of Fifa: if they renounce to run in the elections scheduled for March 12 to leave the stage to the South African billionaire, supported by Gianni Infantino, the president of Fifa, they will be first and second vice-presidents. Jacques Anouma would be offered a position as advisor to the president. According to the Senegalese daily Sud Quotidien, Senegal has already made the deal at a meeting of the Senegalese Football Federation’s Emergency Committee on March 2.
Jacques Anouma received a letter on February 26 from the governing body of the football club asking him to account for the financing of his campaign. Fifa suspects the candidate of having received financial support from the Ivorian authorities worth about 15 million euros. “It should be noted that the candidate does not receive funding from the Ivorian authorities, the latter having committed, through the communiqué sanctioning the Council of Ministers of January 20, 2021, to conduct diplomatic and relational actions for the promotion of the candidacy,” replied Anouma in a statement dated March 2, March.
After the meeting in Rabat, each candidate returned to his country for consultations. They are expected to meet next weekend in Nouakchott during the final of the CAN U20, to make a choice before the election of March 12.