Issa Hayatou Biography, Net Worth, Age, Height, Weight, Family, Wiki 2024

Issa Hayatou Biography, Net Worth, Age, Height, Weight, Family, Wiki 2024

Name Issa Hayatou
Date of Birth August 09, 1946
Profession
Net Worth $1.5 Million

Issa Hayatou (born 9 August 1946) is a Cameroonian sports executive, former athlete and football administrator best known for serving as the president of the Confederation of African Football (CAF) between 1988 and 2017. He served as the acting FIFA president until 26 February 2016 as previous president Sepp Blatter was banned from all football-related activities in 2015 as a part of the that year’s FIFA corruption investigation. In 2002, he ran for president of FIFA but was defeated by Blatter. He is also a member of the International Olympic Committee (IOC).

Issa Hayatou
President of FIFA
Acting
In office
8 October 2015 – 26 February 2016
Preceded by Sepp Blatter
Succeeded by Gianni Infantino
Senior Vice President of FIFA
In office
3 July 1992 – 16 March 2017
President João Havelange
Sepp Blatter
Gianni Infantino
Preceded by General Mostafa
Succeeded by Ángel María Villar
5th President of CAF
In office
10 March 1988 – 16 March 2017
Preceded by Abdel Halim Muhammad
Succeeded by Ahmad Ahmad
Honorary Member of International Olympic Committee
Incumbent
Assumed office
16 July 2001 (Hon. Since 2017)
Preceded by
Personal details
Born 9 August 1946 (age 77)
Garoua, French Cameroons
Died March 1, 2024
Occupation
  • Sportsman
  • Football administrator

In November 2010 he was alleged by the BBC to have taken bribes in the 1990s regarding the awarding of World Cup television rights. The IOC has announced it will investigate him. Following the 2015 FIFA corruption case, Hayatou took charge of FIFA, as the acting president, until 26 February 2016 when Gianni Infantino was elected to the position. On 16 March 2017, he was defeated by Malagasy challenger Ahmad Ahmad, ending Hayatou’s 29-year reign as the CAF President. On 24 May 2017, he was appointed President of the National Football Academy by the president of Cameroon, Paul Biya

Hayatou was born in Garoua, Cameroon on 9 August 1946, the son of a local Sultan, and became a middle distance runner and physical education teacher. Hayatou had a successful career as an athlete, becoming a member of the Cameroonian national squads in both Basketball and Athletics, and holding national record times in the 400 and 800-meter running.

He is married with four children. The Hayatou family are traditional holders of the sultanate (Lamidat, from the Sokoto Caliphate’s traditional Fula title Lamine) of Garoua. Hayatou was son of the reigning sultan, and many relatives have acceded to powerful positions in Cameroonian society. Most notable is Issa’s brother Sadou Hayatou, a former Prime Minister of Cameroon and longtime high official under Cameroon president Paul Biya, who was among those tapped to succeed him. The Hayatou family continue to wield much political influence in northern Cameroon.

In 1974, aged just 28, he became Secretary General of the Cameroonian Football Federation, and Chair of the FA in 1986. As chair, he was chosen the same year to sit on the CAF Executive Committee. Following the retirement of Ethiopia’s Ydnekatchew Tessema from the CAF presidency in August 1987, Hayatou was elected as the fifth president in the body’s history. He lost his seventh re-election campaign to Ahmad Ahmad in March 2017

President of CAF for almost three decades, Hayatou has overseen particularly successful FIFA World Cup appearances by Senegal, Nigeria, and Cameroon, and pushed for African places in the finals to increase from two to five, with the 2010 World Cup in South Africa seeing the hosts garner an automatic sixth spot for an African team. Mr. Hayatou has presided over both the bid and the organising committee for the 2010 games, the first in Africa. The African Cup of Nations finals expanded from 8 to 16 teams, in a confederation of over 50 nations in six zones and five regional confederations. Club competitions have undergone a similar growth in both numbers and scale, with more clubs participating in the African Cup of Champions Clubs, the CAF Confederation Cup (begun in 2004 for national cup winners and high-placed league teams), the CAF Cup, and the CAF Super Cup. There has also been an expansion outside men’s football, with the CAF overseeing Youth, Women’s, Fustal, and Beach soccer competitions.

Relations with UEFA and FIFA

One of the major aims of Hayatou’s presidency in the late 1990s was to provide incentives to African football clubs which would stem the flow of African players to Europe; an initiative which met with little success. Hayatou has couched some criticism of the uneven flow of football ‘resources’ in colonial terms, saying that “rich countries import the raw material – talent – and often send their less valuable technicians”, an implied criticism of foreign coaching staffs that employed by most African national sides. A September 1997 initiative negotiated by Hayatou with UEFA saw the payment of fees to African governing bodies and clubs for African-born players working in Europe. This was followed by the Meridian Project signed in December 1997 with UEFA, which was to provide cash payments to African National Associations every other year, and created the UEFA–CAF Meridian Cup. The 1999 Goal Project created with FIFA gives 46 African FAs financial support worth one million dollars over four years. These negotiations, regardless of their impact on African club football, forged a close relationship between UEFA leaders and Hayatou, and led to UEFA’s backing of Hayatou’s nomination to replace Sepp Blatter as head of FIFA in 2002. Blatter, supported by the American and Asian confederations, defeated Hayatou by 139 votes to 56.

In November 2010 Andrew Jennings, the presenter of FIFA’s Dirty Secrets, an edition of BBC’s flagship current affairs programme Panorama alleged that Hayatou had taken bribes in the 1990s regarding the awarding of contracts for the sale of television rights to the football World Cup. Panorama claimed to have obtained a document from a company called ISL which showed that Hayatou was paid 100,000 French Francs by the company. ISL won the contract to distribute the television rights. Hayatou has denied the allegations, saying that the money went not to him but to CAF. The IOC has announced it will investigate Hayatou, due to his membership of the organisation.

In May 2011, The Sunday Times published claims from a whistle-blower that Hayatou had, along with fellow Executive Committee member Jacques Anouma, accepted $1.5 million bribes from Qatar to secure his support for their bid for the 2022 FIFA World Cup

  • 1964 – 1971 Champion at the 400m and 800m; member of the Cameroon national basketball team; football player at university level.
  • 1965 Member of the Cameroon national basketball team on the occasion of the first All Africa Games in Brazzaville.

On 3 November 2007, Hayatou was awarded an honorary degree from Ladoke Akintola University of Technology in Ogbomosho, Oyo State, Nigeria

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