African federations repeat their backing for Blatter to battle on as FIFA president
ADDIS ABABA: African football leaders have reiterated their support for Sepp Blatter seekig a fifth term as president of world federation FIFA.
In Sao Paulo in Juve Blatter was offered an acclamation when he attended a conference of the African football confederation (CAF) on the eve of FIFA’s own annual congress.
After a CAF executive meeting in Ethiopia at the weekend, general secretary Hicham el Amrani said: “Africa will offer unanimous support to FA president Sepp Blatter at the next elective assembly.”
Blatter moved up from chief exective to FIFA president in 1998. He was re-elected in 2002 – in a decisive victory over CAF leader Issa Hayatou – then again in 2007 and 2011.
Blatter has said he will announce his candidacy formally later this week to the FIFA excutive committee. The only declared candidate at the moment if former FIFA official Jerome Champagne.
In other decisions the CAF exco awarded Cameroon the African Nations Cup in 2019 to be followed by Ivory Coast in 2021 and Guinea in 2023.
Algeria is on standby to take over from war-torn Libya in 2017.
CAF has maintained hosting bans on Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone because of the ebola crisis.
#############
