Re-elected CAF president Patrice Motsepe instructed new govt committee member and former Cameroon star Samuel Eto’o on Wednesday in Cairo that the “previous stays prior to now”.
South African billionaire Motsepe was talking at a press convention after his organisation held its extraordinary common meeting — the yearly spotlight for African soccer officers.
After an illustrious profession with quite a few European golf equipment, together with Barcelona, Inter Milan and Chelsea, Eto’o has develop into a controversial official.
Since being elected head of the Cameroonian Soccer Federation (FECAFOOT) in 2001, he has admitted assaulting a soccer supporter and been banned by FIFA and CAF.
When video footage went viral of Eto’o attacking a fan after a 2022 World Cup match in Qatar, the four-time African Footballer of the Yr publicly apologised.
FIFA barred Eto’o from attending males’s and ladies’s internationals involving Cameroon for six months over his “offensive behaviour” throughout the 2024 Ladies’s under-20 World Cup in Colombia.
CAF suspended one of many best African footballers for “critically violating the ideas of ethics, integrity and sportsmanship” by turning into a model ambassador for a betting organisation.
That ban would have barred Eto’o from looking for an govt committee place on Wednesday at a resort overlooking the pyramids within the Egyptian capital.
However he efficiently appealed to the Courtroom of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) and the ban was lifted late final week, simply in time for Eto’o to win a spot on the chief committee by acclamation.
In a committee together with representatives from every of the six CAF geographical areas, Eto’o was the only real candidate from the Central African Soccer Federations Union (UNIFFAC).
Reacting to the election of the three-time UEFA Champions League winner, Motsepe stated: “The CAF govt committee decided about Samuel Eto’o that was overturned by CAS.
“He (Eto’o) has now been elected as one of many leaders of African soccer, and an important factor is that we should assist him.
“Everybody at CAF should make sure that incidents involving Eto’o prior to now should stay prior to now.
“Nothing that occurred beforehand ought to now be held in opposition to him. I imagine he has an essential contribution to make.”
“Cameroon, underneath the management of Samuel, will return to its glory days,” added the 63-year-old as he prepares to begin a second four-year time period because the chief of African soccer.
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