PEOPLE AND PLACES IN THE NEWSE
lected football
officials at FIFA and
confederation level
have over the years
been regarded with
increasing suspicion,
with many seen to be
using the game to build a public profile or
to profit from the riches and largesse that
the sport offers.
Many of these would appear to have
murky backgrounds and seem ill-fitted
for service to football, yet they are still
able to win the confidence of voting
associations and take their place at
some of the sport’s top tables.
And this is indeed true of Patrice-
Edouard Ngaissona, who won a surprise
place on the executive committee of
the Confederation of African Football
in February last year.
Less than 12 months later, the
president of the Central African Republic
Football Federation was in the dock at
the International Criminal Court (ICC) in
The Hague to hear charges against him
of crimes against humanity and war
crimes in his home country.
According to his arrest warrant,
the 51-year-old is liable for crimes
committed with other perpetrators
or for aiding and abetting crimes
including murder, persecution, torture,
extermination and using child soldiers.
Ngaissona was arrested while on a
trip to France in December, travelling
on a diplomatic passport, and then
extradited to Holland, where his caseis set to begin on June 18.
Ngaissona is one of the leaders of
a militant group that is accused of
targeting Muslims in the inter-religious
and inter-communal fighting that erupted
in 2013, when predominantly Muslim
Seleka rebels seized power in Central
African Republic’s capital, Bangui.
The violence left thousands dead and
displaced hundreds of thousands more,
so it therefore seems incredulous
that Ngaissona won a seat on the
CAF executive committee despite his
reputation, or that he passed FIFA’s
alleged integrity checks. And he isCAF executive member accused of war crimes
Patrice-Edouard Ngaissona
PEOPLE AND PLACES IN THE NEWSstill listed on FIFA’s website as a member
of the Organising Committee for the Club
World Cup. CAF itself has made no
comment since his arrest.
In footballing terms, Ngaissona was
an unknown before he appeared on the
ballot for the CAF organising committee,
standing for a vacant seat in the central
region against Pierre Alain Mounguengui,
a former international referee who had
since become president of the Gabon
Football Federation
Ngaissona won 30-23, with one
abstention, in the vote by CAF members.
CAF has long had a strong Muslim
leadership, including the current
incumbent Ahmad of Madagascar
and his Cameroonian predecessor Issa
Hayatou, and yet it seems oblivious to the
background of the boss of Central African
Republic football.
This is the latest blow to a tardy
looking CAF ExCo, where allegationsof financial impropriety hang not only
over the head of Ahmad – the alleged
recipients of money from Qatar during
the 2022 World Cup bidding process- but also several of his committee.
Vice-president Celestin Omari
Selemani was briefly jailed in the
Democratic Republic of Congo last year
in an embezzlement case, while his
colleague Hasan Musa Bility of Liberia
has previously been suspended and
failed integrity checks.
Meanwhile, Isha Johansen is the
subject of anti-corruption allegations in
Sierra Leone, Danny Jordaan – who ran
the South African World Cup bid – has
been accused of corruption and rape in
his own country, and Zambia’s Kalusha
Bwalya has just returned to the ExCo
after a FIFA ban for accepting money
from official Mohammed Bin Hammam
was reduced on appeal.
Mark Gleeson
It seems incredulous Ngaissona won
a seat on CAF’s executive committee
despite his reputation, or that he
passed FIFA’s integrity checksAccused...in the dock