Football: Chad plunged back into crisis as FIFA threatens action

30 November 2023 was supposed to mark a fresh start for Chadian football. After a FIFA suspension, which meant all national teams and clubs were excluded from continental and world competitions, and then the installation of a Normalisation Committee, the Chadian Football Federation was due to find out who its new president would be. Two candidates were standing, Tahir Hassan and Ibrahim Foullah. In the end, though, the Normalisation Committee invalidated Hassan's candidacy, leaving Foullah as the sole candidate for the post.

Read also: Chad: problem for the election of the football federation president

In a letter sent to Tahir Hassan, the Normalisation Committee accuses him in particular of falsifying documents in his application file, which is grounds for automatic disqualification. For Hassan, it is further proof that members of the body, starting with its chair Jacqueline Moudeïna, want to push him out of the race to smooth the way for their own candidate. In a sign of the internal tensions and divisions, Nair Abakar, the Normalisation Committee's vice-president, refused to sign the official report notifying Tahir Hassan that his candidacy had been invalidated.

FIFA piling on the pressure over the election

Faced with this situation, the disqualified candidate took the matter to the N'Djamena Tribunal de Grande Instance. After considering the urgent request, the court ordered the elections suspended while it rules on the substance of the case. The decision is contested by Ibrahim Foullah, who believes all the conditions for the vote to run properly were in place and that his rival's removal for falsifying documents was justified. "All of this is the fault of people from outside football. They falsified documents when we are in a small circle. We all know each other", he told RFI in an interview.

With the electoral process at a standstill, FIFA sent a delegation to Chad to defuse the situation and push for the vote to go ahead despite there being only one candidate. That is one more argument for Tahir Hassan to claim that Ibrahim Foullah is FIFA's preferred candidate and that football's world governing body is pressing for his election. This comes even though Foullah is himself on conditional release, awaiting trial for corruption and embezzlement of public funds.

Chad prepared to risk another suspension

Although everything was done to ensure the election could be held on the scheduled date, the N'Djamena Tribunal de Grande Instance sent law enforcement officers to the venue to halt the process. Men in uniform took possession of the ballot boxes so that the vote could not take place. "The authorities do not want to be dictated to", a federation source told Sport News Africa. "They are ready to risk another suspension rather than yield to any kind of pressure."

Faced with the Chadian authorities' unwillingness to budge, FIFA secured an audience for its delegation, led by Gelson Fernandes, regional director of the member associations division for Africa, with the Prime Minister and head of the Government of National Unity, Saleh Kebzabo. But after the meeting, Chad's position had not changed, leaving the country at risk of another suspension. FIFA will soon make a decision, while Tahir Hassan, for his part, has decided to take the matter to the Court of Arbitration for Sport. It is a sign that this latest saga may not be nearing its conclusion.