The Confederation of African Football Caf has responded to Team Restore Confidence’s petition over the conduct of the August GFF elections which it lost to incumbent Lamin Kaba Bajo and his team.
The TRC led by Sadibou Kamaso had written a long list of complaints about alleged malpractices in the conduct of the elections.
A copy of the petition was sent to bodies including Caf.
But in a response seen by The Standard. The continental football body said the petition bears the nature of an internal dispute, and then went on to refer TRC to Article 64 and 65 of the GFF statutes which respectively state as follows:
64.1. The GFF shall create an arbitration tribunal, which shall deal with all disputes between the GFF, its members, players, officials, match and players’ agents that do not fall under the jurisdiction of its judicial bodies.
64.2. Where an arbitration tribunal has not been created and recognised by the General Assembly of GFF, any dispute of national dimension may only be referred in the last instance to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) in Lausanne (Switzerland).
65.1. The GFF, its members, players, officials and match and player’s agents shall not take any dispute to the ordinary courts unless specifically provided for in these statutes and Fifa regulations.
Any disagreement may be submitted to the jurisdiction of GFF, FIFA, CAF, or WAFU.
65.2. The GFF shall have jurisdiction on internal disputes, i.e., disputes between parties belonging to the GFF. Fifa shall have jurisdiction on international disputes, i.e., disputes between parties belonging to different Associations or Confederations.”
The Standard contacted an expert on GFF statutes who said the Caf response is simply telling TRC that it should have channeled its petition to the GFF appeals committee and it is only when there is no such body that it can sent petition to CAS. “It has also raised a potential risk to TRC because matters such as the petition should not be taken to any bodies outside the GFF statute. If the TRC has involved bodies outside the GFF statutes they could risk sanctions,” our expert said.
When contacted the leader of the TRC Sadibou Kamaso confirmed receiving Caf’s letter. He said the kind of body Caf refers to, an Arbitration Tribunal, does not exist in the GFF. ”What they have is an appeals committee which we have tested and they failed to sit over our concern saying they had no quorum and already a member of the committee was seen by the public at the unveiling of the Kaba -Team.
So where is the independent body we can seek redress from. How can the GFF bodies who are parties to the election be fair with an opponents’ concern,” Kamaso asked.
Asked if he is not worried that the GFF may invoke any law to sanction him for his actions, Kamaso said he has never taken any football matter to any court of law and therefore did not infringe any law
