Gianni Infantino Excoriates CAF Chief Due to “Financial Corruption”

The President of the International Football federation (FIFA) Mr. Gianni Infantino, again opened fire on the African Football Confederation president Ahmed Ahmed due to corruption in his body, stressing that he will never allow as long as being President of FIFA such malpractice, considering that the African Football Authority is steeped into a major crisis and that investigations are still ongoing regarding what is happening in the black continent.

Speaking at a press conference on Monday before journalists present in the proceedings of the 83rd international Sports Press association congress (AIPS) held in the Hungarian city of Budapest and attended by “Echorouk”, the President of the International Football Federation confirmed that he was not allowed as FIFA President to have any financial corruption in all continental football federations.
“As long as I am president of FIFA, I will never allow corruption of all kinds, Mr. Infantino told the 300 or so journalists attending, stressing that the investigation into these “corruption accusations” is still ongoing, adding: “I hope that the Confederation of African Football and its President Ahmed Ahmed have realized that I will be tough towards those who gnawed at the African football”.

FIFA President Gianni Infantino emphasized, on the other hand, that millions of dollars spent annually by FIFA should not go into anyone’s pocket. “Our first goal is to invest in the African continent like building stadiums, which he considered the only way to develop football, not the other way around”, he stated.

The FIFA President indicated that Ahmed Ahmed was appointed three years ago and has only one year left in his term. Investigations against him for alleged bribery practices are still ongoing, and the FIFA President confirmed that his future program for developing the game in Africa is based on three main points, related to refereeing, infrastructure and competitions, stressing that FIFA has increased its financial support for the African continent to $ 127 million instead of $ 27 million since he came to its presidency in 2017.

The FIFA President further underscored that he wants to move the African refereeing to the level of professionalism by choosing 20 African referees by paying their salaries, ensuring their proper training so as to lead the refereeing to independence from the impact of political and economic decision, and thus contribute to the improvement of infrastructures in the continent by allocating an amount of one billion dollars to build at least one stadium with global specifications in every African country.
The Federation of International Football Association (FIFA), wants the Confederation of African Football (CAF) to source for one billion dollars in the form of loan, from the financial market to develop the football game on the continent.

According to Mr. Gianni Infatino – President of FIFA, the move would enable CAF to invest heavily in infrastructural development of each country on the continent, adding this would be used to generate money to repay the loan.

He added that this would enable each country in Africa, to have more infrastructure to generate more revenue to pay back the loan.

According to Mr. Infantino, should CAF accept these FIFA proposal, they would proceed to support them on how to use the loan to generate income for the repayment as well the development of the game.

“Without infrastructure, there can never be good football and good competition”, he underlined.

“It would also enable us create new competitions to generate enough money for the football game,” he added.

He said “I hope Africa accepts this proposal… In the last years I have been traveling to 41 African countries”.

“In some stadiums the night before a match there were sheep. Infrastructure needs to be thoroughly revised,” he noted.