FAM president delegates GS for Fifa boss meeting

Football Association of Malawi (FAM) president Walter Nyamilandu has delegated general secretary Alfred Gunda for a Fifa summit to be held in Johannesburg, South Africa tomorrow.

According to a Reuters report, Fifa president Gianni Infantino will meet more than 50 presidents of African football associations in an unprecedented summit.

Each of the continent’s 54 member countries has been invited to a day-long executive summit with Infantino, called to discuss general issues in the game and explain Fifa’s plans to expand the World Cup and changes to its development structures.

Nyamilandu yesterday said the summit is like a consultative meeting with member associations as a replacement for various committees that have been scrapped off.

“All countries from Africa have been invited and the GS will attend,” he said.

Asked if the meeting was not specifically for heads of associations, the FAM president said: “I will let the GS attend.”

According to Reuters, the association presidents will be divided into two groups with some 25 meeting Infantino and other Fifa officials tomorrow and the rest repeating the exercise the next day.

It is the first time such a summit has been held at which Fifa deals directly with all the leaders of African football. Infantino, however, did meet about 20 association presidents in Nigeria last July in a gathering that pointedly snubbed long-standing Confederation of African Football (CAF) president Issa Hayatou and members of his executive committee.

Usually the only time all association presidents get together is for annual Fifa and CAF congresses.

After the summit, Infantino is expected to proceed to Zimbabwe where he will attend a party organised by Council of Southern Africa Football Associations (Cosafa) president Phillip Chiyangwa to celebrate his recent election as well as his birthday.

Chiyangwa, who is also Zimbabwe Football Association (Zifa) president, has invited a wide array of African football leaders to the gathering as he seeks to galvanise support for Cosafa’s nominee for CAF presidency Ahmed Ahmed.

CAF has since written Chiyangwa warning him of sanctions if he goes ahead with the meeting, saying he has no right to call for such gathering.