Harare, Zimbabwe (News of the South)-FIFA President Gianni Infantino’s coming to Zimbabwe was merely part of Fifa’s larger ten day African trip to assess the FIFA Forward programme unlike the impression given by Phillip Chiyangwa that it was at his invitation.
Chiyangwa hogged the limelight recently after giving the impression that Infantino was visiting Zimbabwe at his invitation to attend his celebratory function after winning Cosafa Presidency.
Infantino arrived in Zimbabwe last week to much adulation for Chiyangwa’s scheming in managing to bring the Fifa head to the country also as part of a larger plot to oust the current CAF Head Issa Hayatou of Cameroon.
Hayatou himself was reportedly livid at the news of the gathering accusing Chiyangwa of seeking to drum up support for Mauritania’s Ahmad Ahmad who is set to compete against Hayatou for the post of CAF President in elections very soon.
Chiyangwa is ostensibly leading Ahmad’s campaign.
However information released by FIFA shows that Infantino’s coming to Zimbabwe was never initialized by Chiyangwa but is merely part of a wider programme by Fifa to visit ten Africa countries and assess the implementation of the FIFA Forward programme.
The tour by Infantino saw him visiting Swaziland, Uganda, Ghana, Niger, Mauritania, Chad, South Africa and Zimbabwe.
“President Infantino was discussing the implementation of the FIFA Forward programme and supporting the associations to help continue the growth of African football”.
“President Infantino began the trip with a two day summit in Johannesburg featuring two separate day-long forums, the discussions presented an opportunity for national association heads to talk directly with the FIFA President and various other FIFA officials on how the needs of the continent and individual nations could best be served”, it said.
“In the wake of the Johannesburg Executive Summit, it was a pleasure to visit other several African Member Associations and see how much of an everyday passion football is” said President Infantino.
The events leading to Infantino’s coming have served to reveal the paranoia bedeviling African soccer leaders and their lust fro power.
During his journey around the continent, as well as meeting football and government officials across each of the nations visited Infantino helped lay the foundations at a training complex in Uganda and an official Rwanda FA site, while inaugurating a new football centre in Niger.
Comments
About Author
