In Africa, presidents of football federations who are in prison

You can be incarcerated or on the run abroad and still manage a football federation. In Mali, the body is chaired by Mamoutou Touré, re-elected on August 27, 2024 a few weeks after his incarceration. The former boss of Malagasy football, Raoul Rabekoto, left his country clandestinely for Europe, from where he continued to exercise his mandate for several years.

If several presidents or ex-presidents have had problems with the justice system of their country for acts of financial delinquency not always linked to their mandate, others are accused of more serious acts. This is the case of Central African Patrice-Edouard Ngaïssona, accused of crimes against humanity and detained at the International Criminal Court (ICC), in The Hague, in the Netherlands.

Wadie Jary (Tunis)

Since March 9 and the end of Wadie Jary’s mandate, the Tunisian Football Federation (FTF) has no longer had a president. The body was placed under the supervision of FIFA, via the installation of a standardization committee responsible for preparing the next election. Mr. Jary was arrested in October 2023, after the filing of a complaint by Kamel Deguiche, minister of sports at the time.

Wadie Jary, who was a professional player and then president of US Ben Guerdane, had been in the crosshairs of Tunisian justice for several months. At the start of 2023, he was banned from leaving the country, preventing him in particular from attending the FIFA congress in Kigali (Rwanda).

This trained doctor, who is imprisoned in Mornaguia prison, about fifteen kilometers from Tunis, was arrested for the supposed irregularity of a contract signed between the FTF and a technical director. But Wadie Jary is also the target of investigations for suspected match-fixing, money laundering, corruption and embezzlement. A date for his trial has not yet been set. The former president also saw his last request for release rejected in April.

Mamoutou Touré (Mali)

Mamoutou Touré, known as “Bavieux”, is the only president of a football federation in the world to have been re-elected while in prison. Arrested on August 9, 2023, he was confirmed in office even though he was the only candidate in the running. FIFA did not oppose his re-election, since the facts with which he is accused have nothing to do with the management of the Malian Football Federation (Femafoot). His country’s justice system suspects him of “attack on public funds, forgery and use of forgery and complicity” when he was the administrative and financial director of the National Assembly, from 2013 to 2019. The facts relate to a sum of 26 million euros.

Four other people, members like him of the Rally for Mali (RPM), the party of former President Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta, in power between 2013 and 2020, were also arrested and charged. From his cell, where he receives regular visits from members of the federation’s executive committee, Mamoutou Touré continues to manage the main files, including the recent appointment of Belgian Tom Saintfiet to the position of national coach. He is currently hospitalized in a clinic in Bamako for health reasons.

Raoul Arizaka Rabekoto (Madagascar)

His flight to Europe in 2020, via the Comoros and Reunion Island, when he was prohibited from leaving Malagasy territory, made headlines in the press on the Big Island. Raoul Arizaka Rabekoto, president of the Malagasy Football Federation (FMF), had managed to escape the police who wanted to arrest him so that he could answer to the courts for his actions when he was general director of the National Social Insurance Fund (Cnaps), from 2009 to 2018. Accused of having embezzled around 25 million euros and targeted by an investigation for “abuse of office, forgery in public writing and use of forgery”, the man has always pleaded his innocence since France and Switzerland, where he took refuge.

FIFA, considering that the facts were not linked to the exercise of his mandate at the head of the federation, did not intervene, and Mr. Rabekoto continued to chair the FMF, organizing meetings by videoconference. He was finally replaced at the head of the federation by Alfred Randriamanampisoa in October 2023.

Sentenced in absentia by the Malagasy courts to ten years of forced labor and a fine of 105,000 euros, Raoul Arizaka Rabekoto now lives in France.

Patrice-Edouard Ngaïssona (Central African Republic)

The former president of the Central African Football Federation (FCF), which he led since 2008, is detained in The Hague (Netherlands), after being arrested in 2018 on a warrant from the International Criminal Court (ICC) for “ war crimes and crimes against humanity. Patrice-Edouard Ngaïssona is at the same time a businessman, a sports leader and a political figure, since he was a deputy and minister of sports for former president François Bozizé.

The founder of the Central African Party for Unity and Development (PCUD) was also elected to the executive committee of the Confederation of African Football (CAF) in 2018, which caused some unease within the body. And for good reason: at that time, Mr. Ngaïssona was in the crosshairs of the ICC for his role in the civil war in the Central African Republic, as coordinator of the anti-balaka militias, self-defense militias which confronted the Seleka, a coalition of rebel groups that overthrew President Bozizé in 2013. Patrice-Edouard Ngaïssona’s requests for release were all rejected.

Mohammed Iya (Cameron)

When he was arrested in June 2013, Mohammed Iya, now aged 74, was the director of the Cotton Development Company (Sodecoton) but also the president of the Cameroonian Football Federation (Fécafoot), which he has been in charge since 2000. Under his various mandates, Cameroon won the African Cup of Nations (2000 and 2002) and the men’s football tournament during the Olympic Games in Sydney (Australia) in 2000.

His country’s justice system accuses him of embezzlement of public funds amounting to 16.6 million euros. The man who was also co-founder and president of Coton Sport de Garoua, one of the best clubs in Cameroon, was sentenced in 2015 to fifteen years of detention by the Special Criminal Court (TCS) of Yaoundé.

Mohammed Iya is incarcerated at the Kondengui central prison (or Yaoundé central prison), an establishment with a sad reputation, known for its prison overcrowding and poor hygienic conditions.