Foot: Yacine Idriss Diallo elected president of the Ivorian Federation, Drogba beaten
Idriss Diallo.
AFP - SIA KAMBOU
Text by: David Kalfa Follow
3 mins
Yacine Idriss Diallo was elected president of the Ivorian Football Federation (FIF) on April 23, 2022 in Yamoussoukro.
He was ahead of Sory Diabaté and ex-superstar Didier Drogba.
He succeeds Augustin Sidy Diallo after four and a half years of crisis at the FIF.
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Four months after Samuel Eto'o in Cameroon, many African football fans were expecting the victory of another legend, Didier Drogba, at the head of a national federation.
But the former superstar of Marseille (France), Chelsea (England) or Galatasaray (Turkey) was on the contrary ejected in the first round, this April 23, 2022 in Yamoussoukro, for the presidency of the Ivorian Football Federation (FIF) .
With 21 votes, the former captain of the national team was clearly overtaken by his two rivals, Yacine Idriss Diallo (59 votes) and Sory Diabaté (50 votes), after a long elective General Assembly (AGE ), repeatedly postponed in recent months.
In the second round, Idriss Diallo beat Sory Diabaté by a breath, 63 votes to 61.
“
I will not be the president of one camp against another camp
”, launched this businessman to the leaders of the clubs of 1st, 2nd, 3rd divisions and groups of interests which designated him successor of Sidy Diallo.
The one who was a senior leader of the FIF in the 2000s had already called on several occasions for cohesion and to defend the best interests of Ivorian football.
Among other things, he will have to manage the round ball during a highly anticipated 2023 African Cup of Nations scheduled in his country.
A crisis that has lasted four and a half years
The crisis within the Ivorian Football Federation began at the end of 2017, following the non-qualification of the national A team for the 2018 World Cup. On December 29, 2017, clubs and several interest groups demanded a extraordinary general meeting to force the departure of the one who has led the FIF since 2011 and who was re-elected in 2016, Augustin Sidy Diallo.
After a visit in January by Véron Mosengo-Omba, then Regional Director of the International Football Federation (Fifa) for Africa and the Caribbean, the factions are invited to Zurich for mediation on March 20, 2018. of this, Fifa then displays a certain optimism.
But the negotiations are slipping, the low blows are multiplying in Côte d'Ivoire, for long months.
The FIF plans an elective GA in the summer of 2020. But on August 27 of that year, a few hours after the rejection of Didier Drogba's candidacy, Fifa called for the electoral process to be halted pending clarifications from of its actors.
An intervention that aroused a lively controversy.
The losers in the FIF elections, Sory Diabaté and Didier Drogba.
AFP - SIA KAMBOU
FIFA eligibility test
On November 21, 2020, Augustin Sidy Diallo – who had decided not to run again – died shortly after testing positive for Covid-19.
A month after this tragic disappearance, Fifa places the FIF under supervision with a Standardization Committee, for one year.
A mandate finally extended in the face of the difficulties in organizing an elective EGM, between the Covid-19 and persistent disagreements.
This day was finally able to take place.
End of the crisis?
The three candidates have undertaken, before the ballot, to submit to an eligibility test with Fifa.
Yacine Idriss Diallo has therefore won the game, unless FIFA intervenes in the next few days...
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