CAF holds executive committee meeting with FIFA supremo as guest

The Executive Committee of the Confederation of African Football (CAF) held its meeting on Friday, January 15, in Yaounde, Cameroon. As a special guest of honour, FIFA President, Gianni Infantino, was in attendance during his maiden visit to Cameroon for the Total African Nations Championship (CHAN).

The Exco reached a number of decisions on discussion items on their agenda such as forthcoming competitions, the electoral process for filling vacant positions in CAF and on the FIFA Board and the situation at the Football Federation in the Republic of Chad.

On competitions, the Executive Committee reached the following decisions:

• Morocco was designated as hosts of the 2022 Women’s Africa Cup of Nations

• Recognising the impact of COVID-19 which has led to several withdrawals by teams and countries from various competitions, the Committee decided to grant amnesty to all such cases of withdrawals effective March last year till date

• The Exco modified the minimum number of players allowed to start a match due to COVID-19 in order to allow teams to play with less than a total of 15 players during this period.

Part of the modification included permitting a team to play a match if they can get up to 11 players. If there is no goalkeeper, another player can replace the goalkeeper on condition that the total number of players on the pitch, for the side, is up to 11.

On the electoral process, the Exco ratified the decision of CAF’s Emergency Committee which stated:

“The Governance Committee of CAF shall submit, to the FIFA Review Committee which will perform the eligibility check of the candidatures received for the position of CAF President, considering that CAF President is ex officio FIFA vice-president.

“The Governance Committee of CAF together with the FIFA Review Committee must determine as soon as possible a date for formalising the final list of all the candidates for all the elections”.

Concerning the issue with Chad, the Committee recommended the establishment of a joint CAF-FIFA mission on Chad. Their responsibility will be to assist in the formulation of pathways out of the crisis between the Chad Football Federation and Government authorities in the North-central African country.