WRACKED by perennial maladministration and thrown out of sync by the Covid-19 pandemic, last week’s guilty verdict on Confederation of African Football (CAF) President Ahmad Ahmad by the adjudicatory chamber of the independent Ethics Committee of FIFA, football’s international governing body, is exactly the kind of news that a beleaguered African football could do without. Concluding a saga which began in June 2019 when the Madagascar-born Ahmad was arrested and questioned in Paris by French authorities in connection with his involvement in CAF’s dealings with the sports equipment company Tactical Steel, the Committee found Mr. Ahmad in breach of articles 15, 20, 25, and 28 of the FIFA Code of Ethics. The articles deal with “Duty of loyalty,” “Offering and accepting gifts or other benefits,” “Abuse of position,” and “Misappropriation of funds” respectively.
The guilty verdict means that Mr. Ahmad, who is also a Vice-President of FIFA and onetime ally of its president Gianni Infantino, is banned from all football-related activities at both national and international levels for five years, which effectively rules him out of contention for CAF’s next presidential elections in March 2021. In addition, Mr. Ahmad is expected to pay a fine of $200, 000. Mr. Ahmad, through his lawyers, has rejected the guilty verdict and filed an appeal with the Switzerland-based Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS).
Mr. Ahmad is claiming, among other things, that the verdict “was not rendered in a fair and impartial manner,” that he, Mr. Ahmad, was “notably refused the right to examine some of his witnesses during a hearing conducted at the prosecution’s double pace,” that the hearing “was not held according to the expected and usual standards,” and finally, that information “which is supposed to be strictly confidential” was leaked to the press, thus “preventing, in fact, a serene investigation from taking place.”
Mr. Ahmad is well within his rights to appeal the Ethics Committee’s decision and request a stay of execution. In particular, his legal team’s allegation that FIFA “hastened to issue an urgent and immediately enforceable decision, without providing the grounds of the sentence, despite its seriousness,” should be carefully considered. That said, the evidentiary weight appears to tilt against Mr. Ahmad, and as a matter of fact,if the full report of the Ethics Committee confirms anything, it is that he is not a lone wolf in CAF. Disturbingly, the report hints at “potential elements of mismanagement and possible abuse of power… in key areas of finance and operations,” and as we speak, CAF’s senior vice president, Congolese Constant Omari, is facing his own ethics investigation in connection with a television deal apparently constructed to favour the confederation’s broadcast partners.
For football lovers in Africa and worldwide, the real agony from Mr. Ahmad’s saga is that it confirms fears that the heart of the beautiful game is being increasingly ripped out by greed and venality. For example, since 2015, five of FIFA’s six global confederations have had to replace leaders accused of ethical violations. The irony here is that, worldwide, and particularly in Africa, many in fact turn to football and other sports as an escape from the corruption that they see everywhere else. Part of the beauty of football is its inherent meritocracy and democratic transparency. CAF and national football authorities have a duty to keep it that way.
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