Motsepe Set to Become CAF President as CAS Knocks out Ahmad
Billionaire South African, Patrice Motsepe, will become the president of the Confederation of African Football (CAF) later this week after Ahmad’s five-year ban was reduced to two years by the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) on Monday.
The path for Motsepe to become the first South African to run CAF has been entirely cleared after three of his rivals - Jacques Anouma, Augustin Senghor and Ahmed Yahya - withdrew their candidacies over the weekend.
The final obstacle to the 59-year-old’s coronation on Friday was a potential comeback for recent CAF President Ahmad, who had needed to entirely overturn his ban to be able to contest the elections.
The 61-year-old from Madagascar failed to do this, even if he did succeed in more than halving his sanction and seeing his fine reduced from just over $200,000 to a little over $50,000.
While he was cleared of any wrongdoing in the arrangements concerning CAF’sbusiness dealingswith French company Tactical Steel, Ahmad was still found to have breached three other FIFA ethics rules.
“The CAS Panel has partially upheld the appeal and has reduced the length of the suspension imposed on Mr Ahmad to two years, starting today, less the period of suspension already served between 19 November 2020 and 29 January 2021, and has also reduced the fine,” CAS saidin a statement.
When banned by FIFA in November, the global body had cited Ahmad’s ‘Duty of Loyalty’ breach - which was in connection to his role in the deal between CAF and Tactical Steel,which mainly manufactures gym equipment, for the latter to provide sportswear.