Madagascar Football Association’s president Ahmad Ahmad has been elected the new president of the Confederation of African Football (CAF), beating long-serving Cameroonian Issa Hayatou in a vote conducted in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa.
Hayatou has been at the helm of African football since 1988, and was seeking to extend his leadership for another three years.
Ahmad garnered 34 votes against Hayatou’s 20, and he could not hide his joy at winning the vote.
“If I thought that I could not do it, I would not have presented myself,” Ahmad told the press after the vote.
Hayatou however refused to comment on the vote, leaving the auditorium right after the results were announced.
Hayatou sought to ride on his experience to win another term, while his opponent campaigned on an agenda of “transparency in the management” of CAF and the end of “obsolete practices”.
FIFA president Gianni Infantino was in Addis Ababa to witness the vote.
Though he has never backed anyone publicly, rumour suggested that he was backing Hayatou’s challenger, and this was majorly fuelled by his attendance of Zifa and Cosafa president Dr Philip Chiyangwa’s birthday party in February. Chjiyangwa is said to have been campaigning against Hayatou.
Hayatou himself had supported Sheikh Salman bin Ebrahim Al Khalifa in the FIFA presidency elections.
