KIGALI, January 15 – The Confederation of African Football (CAF) will make a decision on February 5 on which candidate for the FIFA presidency it supports, the body’s secretary general told AFP on Friday.
“We have an executive committee meeting on February 5 in Kigali and the question will be put vis-a-vis the FIFA presidential elections, so it will then be in the hands of the executive committee and its president to decide on which path to follow,” said Hicham El Amrani.
El Amrani was talking on the sidelines of the signing of an agreement between CAF and the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) to organise tournaments and programmes for technical development.
The AFC is headed by Bahraini Sheikh Salman bin Ebrahim al-Khalifa, one of the candidates for the top job in world football.
The choice of the 54-strong CAF could be crucial in the FIFA vote, scheduled for February 26 in Zurich, the African confederation enjoying the biggest membership ahead of UEFA (53), Asia (46), Concacaf (35), Oceania (11) and South America (10).
Apart from Sheikh Salman, the other candidates are UEFA secretary general Gianni Infantino, former FIFA vice president Prince Ali bin Al Hussein of Jordan, South African business tycoon Tokyo Sexwale and former FIFA official Jerome Champagne of France.