KEIR RADNEDGE in PARIS: Issa Hayatou, long-time commander of African football, might have appreciated the symmetry of his death occurring during the Olympic Games in his adopted home city of Paris.

Born into a rich, powerful family in Cameroon he built a career away from domestic politics which lifted him among the elite of both world football and the Olympic movement. This was a career whose later years were tarnished with controversy which he had to endure while coping with long-term illness.

One of his greatest later failures was in 2017 in underestimating new FIFA president Gianni Infantino whose influence led to his being ousted at the head of the African football confederation by little-known Ahmad Ahmad from Madagascar by 34 votes to 20. Ahmad’s reign proved a disaster from which CAF has yet to recover.

Inevitably Hayatou made enemies within the African game over his two decades in power but his wily manipulation of events and the power of the votes he commanded kept him in all-important FIFA financial favour with first Joao Havelanage and then and with Sepp Blatter.

His relationship with the latter even survived events in 2002 when Hayatou was inveigled by Europe’s UEFA to stand against Blatter, in vain, for the FIFA presidency.

Ultimately Hayatou had the last laugh. In late 2015, as the senior vice-president, he took the interim reins in Zurich after Blatter was suspended – and ultimately banished – over the infamous Platini payment.

Hayatou was born on Augst 9, 1946, in the northern port of Garoua. In the late 1960s he was a national champion middle-distance runner and basketball international. But his sporting ambitions extended far beyond track and court.

Thus he rose to general secretary for nine years of the Cameroon football federation, vice-president for two years and then president from 1986 to 1988. He stepped down on being elected president of CAF and was subsequently a FIFA vice-president from 1992 to 2017.

World Cup award

Hayatou’s reign was marked by the historic World Cup hosting away to South Africa in 2010 and a steady increase in Africa’s finals quota to five teams.

But with power comes negativity. Hayatou was not been implicated in the criminal investigations into FIFA run by the authorities in both the United States and Switzerland in 2015. However he was rapped over the knuckles by the International Olympic Committee for accepting a disputed cash donation from ISL, FIFA’s bankrupt former marketing partner. His 15-year IOC tenure ended in 2016.

In 2021 Hayatou was banned from fotball for one year by FIFA for over a long-term rights deal he had agreed on behalf on CAF with Lagardere Sports. The suspension was quashed by the Court of Arbitration for Sport which found no proof that he had violated FIFA’s ethics code.

Infantino, in tribute, said: “Saddened to hear of the passing of former Caf president, former Fifa president ad interim, Fifa vice president and Fifa council member, Issa Hayatou. A passionate sports fan, he dedicated his life to sports administration.

“On behalf of FIFA, condolences go to his family, friends, former colleagues and all who knew him. Rest in peace.”

IOC tribute

IOC president Thomas Bach said: “Issa Hayatou led FIFA through a very difficult period and was always defending the role of football in the Olympic Games and the Olympic Movement.

“In Africa, he was President of the African Football Federation, and also a leading figure for the wider sports movement on his continent.”

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