Hayatou Not To Seek Re-Election After March

President of the Africa Football Confederation (CAF), Issa Hayatou, has said he will not seek re-election again, if he is re-elected in March into the Confederation.

“If I’m elected, this will be last term,” the CAF President told journalists on the sidelines of the ongoing 2013 Africa Cup of Nations in South Africa.

The election will be in Marrakech, Morocco, in March.’’

Hayatou, from Cameroon, has served as CAF President since 1988 and he seems set to retain his position next month, after he was revealed as the only candidate standing for the post.

CAF confirmed that Hayatou would be unchallenged for re-election in a statement following an Executive Committee meeting in Cairo, Egypt, last year.

In a move that seems to have cleared the coast for the CAF President, a controversial amendment was made to the Confederation’s statutes last September.

CAF member nations voted to introduce a measure that would permit only executive committee officials to run for the organisation’s presidency.

An appeal filed by the Liberia Football Association (LFA) to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) concerning the introduction of the controversial new rules was rejected by CAS because CAF’s own appeal systems had not been exhausted.

The 66-year-old Hayatou was last re-elected for a four-year term in 2009 during the 31st CAF Ordinary General Assembly in Nigeria’s commercial city of Lagos.