Former FIFA employee Veron Mosengo-Omba has been appointed as the new General Secretary of the Confederation of African Football (CAF).
Mosengo-Omba was the former Chief Member Associations Officer of FIFA and is known to be a close friend of FIFA President Gianni Infantino.
The Swiss-Congolese replaces Moroccan Abdel Bah in the role and will start immediately as he left FIFA with immediate effect to get started with the CAF.
“On behalf of all of Fifa, we would like to thank Veron Mosengo-Omba for his excellent work,” said Fifa President Gianni Infantino and General Secretary Fatma Samoura in a joint statement on Saturday, 13th March 2021.
“[We] wish him the very best of luck in his next challenge as CAF General Secretary. FIFA also looks forward to working with him on future projects in helping to project African football to the summit of world football.”
Mosengo-Omba’s appointment has raised further questions about the role of football’s world governing body (FIFA) in this time’s CAF elections.
Infantino and Mosengo-Omba studied law together at university. The DR Congo native was one of two FIFA employees who were spotted talking to the four then presidential candidates in Rabat, Morocco two weeks back.
In Rabat, it was mooted that Patrice Motsepe would become the new CAF president with the other three assuming secondary roles.
The rumours were proven to be true as Senegalese Augustin Senghor and Mauritania’s Ahmed Yahya were appointed as the first and second CAF Vice Presidents, respectively when the body’s new Executive Committee met for the first time on Saturday.
Ahmad Ahmad has been replaced by Patrice Motsepe. (Photo by MOHAMED EL-SHAHED/AFP via Getty Images)
When Senghor withdrew his candidacy, he said that he had joined his one-time rivals in standing aside after accepting “the proposal submitted to us by FIFA, Morocco and Egypt in the superior interest of the unity of African football”.
Infantino justifying his recent trips to Africa said, “It is no secret that CAF has been facing some difficult times.
“So it is an opportunity to look forward to speak with everyone, to try to help African football in whichever way we can,” he replied, having also been asked if FIFA had a preferred candidate.
“I personally spoke with all four candidates for the presidency and many other presidents of associations, and I can confirm there is plenty of common ground between them.”
After CAF’s General Assembly voted to its vice-presidential tally from three to five, Djibouti’s Suleiman Waberi, Cameroon’s Seidou Mbombo Njoya and Kanizat Ibrahim of Comoros have been appointed third, fourth and fifth vice presidents, respectively.
She becomes the first ever female vice president of the CAF, which also announced that Yahya, Mauritania’s FA president, would be co-opted onto the Executive Committee.
