Cape Town - Confederation of African Football (CAF) president Issa Hayatou has been nominated uncontested for another four-year term in charge of the continental body, officials said on Tuesday.
The news sets up Cameroon's Hayatou to lengthen his tenure at the helm of African football to almost 30 years since his election to the post in 1988 but there is still a chance he may face a rival in the elections next year.
CAF have disallowed the candidacy of rival Jacques Anouma because he does not meet new criteria for presidential candidates but the Ivory Coast politician is expected to launch a legal bid to overturn the decision and be allowed to stand at the CAF Congress in Marrakech, Morocco, on March 10.
The 66-year-old Hayatou, anticipating Anouma's bid, engineered a change in the organisation's statutes to permit only voting members of its executive committee to run for the presidency.
The change was overwhelmingly approved at a special CAF Congress, arranged solely for the purpose of amending the rules, in the Seychelles in September.
Anouma is a member of CAF's executive committee only because he serves as one of the continent's representatives on the Fifa executive and he has no voting powers in CAF matters. – Reuters