Nigeria’s Amaju Melvin Pinnick is highly favoured to retain his seat as a member of the 37-person FIFA Council – the supreme governing organ for world football – when elections are conducted at the 14th Extraordinary General Assembly of the Confederation of African Football (CAF) in Cairo, Egypt, today.
The debonair football administrator is at the forefront of the race alongside Moroccan Fouzi Lekjaa, and Egyptian Hany Abou Rida, with 10 persons to battle for the available five seats when the poll is called inside the Marriott Mena House this morning.
Africa has seven seats on the FIFA Council, with the sitting CAF President’s position guaranteed. One of the seven seats is reserved for a woman, and here, CAF’s sitting Fifth Vice President, Kanizat Ibrahim from the Comoros Islands will slug it out with sitting member, Isha Johansen, from Sierra Leone.
The contest for the FIFA Council seats will certainly be the fiercest ever, with Ivorian Yacine Idriss Diallo, Senegal’s Augustin Senghor, Niger Republic’s Djibrilla ‘Pele’ Hima Hamidou, Zambia’s Andrew Kamanga, Mauritanian Ahmed Yahya, Benin Republic’s Mathurin De Chacus and Djibouti’s Souleman Hassan Waberi also in the poll.
CAF President, Patrice Motsepe, who is also unchallenged for a second term at African football’s helm, keeps his seat without any sweat but will watch keenly as only half of the contestants, all strong and deft politicians in their rights, make it to the esteemed FIFA Council.
Each of the 54 member associations will be able to vote for five persons in the densely-populated male category and one of the two women. NFF President, Alhaji Ibrahim Musa Gusau, who will vote on behalf of Nigeria, landed in Cairo, on Sunday in the company of the General
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