Fifa boots CAF president Ahmad Ahmad with five-year ban

The head of Confederation of African Football, Ahmad Ahmad, has been suspended by FIFA for five years for corruption.
The Madagascar-born has been president of the Confederation of African Football (CAF) since March 2017 and was standing for re-election in 2021 when FIFA banned him for “governance issues”.

FIFA says Ahmad had “breached his duty of loyalty, offered gifts and other benefits, mismanaged funds and abused his position as the CAF President”.

Ahmad, 60, has also been fined 200,000 Swiss francs ($220,000) by FIFA for the misdeeds, which related to “the organisation and financing of an Umrah pilgrimage to Mecca” and his involvement in CAF’s dealings with a sports equipment company.

Ahmad last week stood down from his post for 20 days after testing positive for coronavirus, can appeal the ban “from all football-related activity” at the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS).

In April 2019 he was accused of a series of offences by former CAF official Amr Fahmy, who informed FIFA in a letter that Ahmad had paid bribes to directors, made personal use of CAF funds and sexually harassed several employees.

Two months later he was arrested in Paris while at the FIFA Congress ahead of that year’s women’s World Cup as part of a probe into corruption but was released a day later without charge.