Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) president Amaju Pinnick’s bid to become a FIFA Council member and any other candidate vying for various positions in March’s Confederation of African Football (CAF) elections in Morocco will be subjected to FIFA’s ratification.
Pinnick is looking to replace Guinea’s Almamy Kabele Camara at the 37-member FIFA Council which is the main decision-making body of the world football body that sets the vision for FIFA and global football.
But CAF said in a release on Sunday that “At the request of the Interim President of CAF, Mr. Constant Omari, a virtual meeting of the CAF Emergency Committee was held on Saturday with the committee deciding that the Governance Committee of CAF together with the FIFA Review Committee must determine as soon as possible a date for formalizing the final list of all the candidates for all the elections, namely: members of the CAF Executive Committee, FIFA Council members and CAF President.
Also, The Governance Committee shall submit, to the FIFA Review Committee, the candidatures received for the position of CAF President, with the understanding that the President of CAF will become the Vice-President of FIFA.
Yet CAF has ruled that just two of the five candidates for March’s presidential elections are eligible so far, former Ivorian football federation president Jacques Anouma and current Senegal FA president Augustin Senghor; other candidates are hopefully to get approval before the elections in March.
Pinnick’s preferred candidate and Mamelodi Sundowns owner, Patrice Motsepe and Mauritania FA president Ahmed Yahya need further checks before either can be added to the list.
CAF president Ahmad Ahmad has been ‘declared ineligible’ given his five-year Fifa ban but the Malagasy has hopes that the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS ) will make a provisional ruling on his ban by midnight today , after appealing to sport’s highest legal body in December.