adminelections pitting incumbent president Suketu Patel and South African Football Association vice-president Danny Jordaan.
Various presidents and general-secretaries of football associations from the region, Fifa and Confederation of African Football officials and other football experts are expected to be at the Cosafa
Congress at which elections to choose a new leader for Southern Africa will be the highlight of the indaba.
Jordaan, the chief executive of South Africa’s 2010 World Cup organising committee, has been on a campaign trail that also saw him make a one-day visit to Harare to meet with the Zifa leadership and also address a press conference.
The veteran Safa administrator has claimed he will secure “massive sponsorship for Cosafa within two months of the election” should the 14-member bloc give him the mandate to lead the region.
His critics, however allege that Jordaan’s interests are not mainly focused on Cosafa and that he wants to use the region as a platform to rise to the Caf executive and eventually take another crack at the powerful Fifa executive after losing in his first bid at the Caf Congress staged in Sudan in February.
But for all his ambitions and the pledges he has been making on his campaign trail, Jordaan faces a tough challenge in trying to unseat Patel, amid revelations that the former Seychelles Football
Association was “persuaded to seek a fresh mandate by a number of the associations.
It will be a re-match between the two administrators following their contest to secure a place on the Fifa executive committee in Sudan.
Apart from Patel and Jordaan, that race for places on the Fifa leadership also featured Algerian Football Federation president Mohamed Raouaraoua, Cote d’Ivoire’s Jacques Anouma and Nigerian Ibrahim Galadima.
Raouaraoua, a popular figure within the Caf corridors of power, took one of two places with 39 votes to replace disgraced Nigerian official Amos Adamu, who was suspended by Fifa for seeking bribes during the World Cup bidding process for the 2018 and 2022 tournaments.
Anouma retained his spot after garnering 35 votes while Jordaan, who had been confident of a win but was left a hugely disappointed man when he managed just 10 votes to finish a distant fourth place and Patel had 12.
Today there will be no Anouma or Raouaraoua to divide attention as Patel and Jordaan come face to face.
Patel, an accountant by profession, was calmly confident yesterday as he prepared to seek a fresh mandate to lead the region with the respected Seychelles administrator speaking passionately about the transformation that Cosafa has undergone during his tenure.
The Cosafa president, however, insisted he had decided against conducting his campaign through the media arguing that such a move risked involving him in a public slanging match with his rival.
“That is not my style. I will address my membership because at first I did not want to seek re-election but my executive and some of the members asked me to continue.
“I do not have the resources like other people do but I have integrity and I have restored transparency in the way Cosafa is administered,” Patel said.
If some of the indications from some of the whispers in the corridors here are anything to go by, Patel could still retain his seat given on a sympathy vote with many arguing that that he has done his best to try and keep the regional body afloat after most of their South African-based sponsors pulled the plug on their financial support.
But those who are for Jordaan clam that Cosafa needs someone who can breathe life into the region, whose divisions manifested themselves at the Caf 33rd Congress.
Crucially they also believe that Jordaan can weave his magic and lure back the sponsors that have seemingly deserted the region with the 59-year-old pointing to the presence of a number of multi-national companies in the region which he claims have pledged to come on board.
Jordaan has also promised greater co-operation among the associations especially in the junior ranks and capacity building.
Cosafa are still to find a substantive sponsor for the Senior Challenge Cup, last held in Zimbabwe in 2009 and by Patel’s own admission, the Metropolitan Under-20 Championships has had to become their flagship competition.
A Senior Challenge tournament scheduled for Angola last year was also called off at the 11th hour, the same fate that almost befell the Women’s tournament.
It has, however, emerged that Patel’s executive had to splash out R300 000 in a legal battle to retain the rights for the Cosafa Senior Challenge Cup which had been ceded to the organisers of the
Cosafa Castle Cup.
Online Reporter