20 July 2017 – Confederations of African Football (CAF) President, Mr Ahmad has lauded the new generation of the continent’s administrators calling them visionaries and mature.
Closing a two-day football symposium in the Moroccan city of Rabat which ran from 18-19 July, Ahmad said ideas shared during the extraordinary meeting would permanently change the face of the game on the African continent.
“The debates have been mature, inspired and of high quality. What I just need to do with my Executive Committee is to take them to Friday’s congress where I hope most would be ratified.
“The delegates showed professionalism and most of their suggestions were quality ideas. I was amazed by the maturity and ideas that came out of the two-day gathering,” said Ahmad.
Under the theme ‘African Football, Our Vision’, the symposium among other things, opted to change the format of the Africa Cup of Nations, the continental mainstay competition by increasing participating countries from 16 teams to 24. The meeting also resolved to play the championships in June and even suggested taking the final out of Africa to emerging markets like Qatar or China in a bid to grow the game in leaps and bounds.
The CAF President said he was touched by the support of all Africans considering he had only been in office for a few months.
“I can safely say the symposium was a great success considering that most of the philosophies and strategies will change our game for the better. This is the founding strategy for the new CAF.
“What we did here was coming up with solutions to the difficulties facing our game. We want this game to grow and the past two days has shown Africa wants to take a new direction going forward,” he added.
The normally reserved CAF President was uncharacteristically upbeat saying the symposium outcomes was more than he had expected.
“What I have seen here is beyond what I expected. We will now look at the proposals and try to implement them for the betterment of our game.”
The South African Football Association (SAFA) was represented by President, Dr Danny Jordaan, CEO Dennis Mumble and Technical Director Neil Tovey among others.