Ahmad deposed Hayatou as CAF president

Ahmad Ahmad of Madagascar has been elected the president of the Confederation of African Football(CAF) in Addis Ababa on Thursday.
Ahmad defeated Issa Hayatou who had been the president for an era spanning 29 years and a senior administrator at Fifa,
Hayatou, a former teacher and sports minister from Cameroon was first elected as the CAF president in 1988 and became a member of the Fifa executive committee two years later
He lost the election decisively at CAF’s congress in Addis Ababa, 34-20 to Ahmad Ahmad, the president of the Madagascar Football Association.
Ahmad will replace him on Fifa’s governing council, so the election signals the departure of another long-term fixture from world football’s governing body’s executive committee, one which overlapped with the 17-year presidency of Sepp Blatter.
Hayatou stood for the Fifa presidency in 2002, supported by a concerted campaign of senior European members of the executive committee determined to oust Blatter, but he lost comprehensively, 139 votes to 56.
His seniority at Fifa endured, however, and after Blatter was suspended in September 2015 over the Platini payment, Hayatou stepped up to become the organisation’s acting president, performing that role until the election of Gianni Infantino, Platini’s former general secretary at Uefa, in February 2016.
Ahmad, 57 and a former player and coach, heads the FA of his country, but under Caf rules a candidate for president has to be a serving member of the executive committee, and he was encouraged by allies to make the challenge.
His manifesto reproduced the standard Fifa and continental confederation promises of good governance and transparency, promised to have significant development money invested smartly and not in “white elephant” building projects, and for football to be “a lever for economical development and a tool to reach social stability” for young people in Africa.
Hayatou had been challenged only twice before during his nearly three decades of power, winning by overwhelming margins in 2000 and 2004. In April 2015 the Caf statutes were changed to remove the then age limit of 70 for a president to stand which allowed Hayatou, who is 71 this year, to put himself forward for yet another term.
However after Ahmad announced his candidacy in January, promising to unify African football and embrace countries who have “lost their trust, their confidence” in Caf, Hayatou found his support dwindled.
At the congress, Ahmad is reported to have been carried shoulder high by supporters to the podium after winning the context.