Amid widespread accusations of corruption, business as usual could be the unofficial Fifa motto — and the Confederation of African Football (CAF) has taken the maxim a step further.
CAF officials Slim Aloulou and Amadou Diakite were suspended from all football activities by Fifa’s ethics committee last November for their part in the discredited 2018 and 2022 World Cup bidding process. But both appeared last month on the list of officials for the CAF standing committees.
Osasu Obayiuwana, a reporter on the Nigerian newspaper, Next, was contacted by a senior CAF figure to alert him that Aloulou had been named chairman of one of its committees, vice-chairman of another and a member of two others. Diakite was also on one of the CAF’s standing committees. Their mandates are from June this year until June 2013.
But Aloulou’s ban runs until NovÂember this year and Diakite’s until November 2012. They were suspended from the CAF executive committee. They are both staunch allies of the CAF president, Issa Hayatou.
A spokesman for the CAF said the two had appealed to the court of arbitration for sport. “They have not been expelled from football, they have been suspended. During their period of suspension they have not attended any committee meetings.”
The court said only Diakite had filed a complaint.
Fifa said it was satisfied that the CAF understood the suspensions and would request that all future communications would make it clear that the men were banned. —