Ahmad Ahmad restored as CAF president by CAS as CAF Presidential Election Draws Closer
We just learnt that Ahmad Ahmad, the embattled president of the Confederation of African Football (CAF); who was recently removed from his position as CAF president in November, 2020 (and banned from all football-related activities for five years by FIFA after he was found to have breached several of the FIFA code of ethics) was on January, 29th reinstated as CAF President… retaking over his position from 74-year-old Issa Hayatou; former CAF boss; who was made CAF’s honorary president following the suspension of Ahmad over breach of FIFA ethics.
As a reminder, the FIFA ethics committee found “Ahmad had breached Code of Ethics relating to duty of loyalty, offering and accepting gifts or other benefits, abuse of position, and misappropriation of funds.
Due to the breach of FIFA’s code of ethics, Ahmad was removed from his position, banned from partaking in all football related activities and also fined 200,000 Swiss francs ($220,000).
61-year-old Ahmad later appealed his suspension at the Court of Arbitration for Sport (Cas), which issued a preliminary ruling on Friday January 29, dramatically restoring him back to his position as president of the Confederation of African Football, CAF.
“Due to a risk of irreparable harm for Mr. Ahmad, if the disciplinary sanction is maintained during the period prior to the Caf elections, the Cas panel has upheld the request to temporarily stay the effects of the [Fifa ban],” Cas, sport’s highest legal body, said in a statement.
“On the other hand, the Arbitration Panel rejected Mr Ahmad’s request for provisional measures aimed at prohibiting FIFA from taking any decision having the consequence of preventing Mr Ahmad or making it more difficult for him to stand for reelection to the Presidency of CAF scheduled for March 12, 2021,” CAS added.
It should be noted that the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) has not pass judgement on Ahmad’s case.
This effective suspension of the FIFA ruling will be in place ‘until the day that the final CAS final judgement is issued’ and if the case doesn’t go in favor of Ahmad, he will be unable to contest in the upcoming CAF presidential election.
However, the embattled president is hoping that the final decision will be in his favor.
CAS says it will hear Ahmad’s appeal in full on 2 March, with the final decision expected to be made known before the Presidential election.
At present, South Africa’s Patrice Motsepe, owner of Mamelodi Sundowns, Mauritania FA President Ahmed Yahya Senegal FA President Augustin Senghor, and Ivory Coast’s Jacques Anouma have all been cleared to run for the upcoming presidential election.
Our ears are still on the ground. We shall bring you more information as the story unfolds.
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