16 March 2017 marks the start of a new era for the Confederation of African Football (CAF). After almost three decades of the reign of the former CAF President, Issa Hayatou, CAF General Assembly elected a new President, Ahmad, and a quasi-new formation of CAF’s Executive Committee. The election of the New President is widely welcomed and received with high hopes and is seen as part of the wind of change that has redrawn the international football picture. CAF’s new Administration under the leadership of the New President, Ahmad, starts its mandate with a heavy legal heritage. CAF is facing antitrust charges in Egypt, its host country, as well as an antitrust investigation on the COMESA level (i.e. the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa). CAF is additionally subject to investigation by the Egyptian Public Funds Prosecutor - for the same incident - but for suspicions of waste of public funds.
Egyptian Antitrust Proceedings
On 20 December 2016, an Egyptian company, Presentation Sports, submitted a complaint to the Egyptian Competition Authority (ECA) against CAF for allegations of abuse of dominance. Based on such, on 3 January 2017, the ECA has referred CAF’s former president, Issa Hayatou, and the former Secretary General of CAF, Hicham Al Amrani, to the Public Prosecutor - Department of Commercial and Financial Affairs (PPCFA), to investigate the alleged violation of CAF of the Egyptian Competition Law no. 3/2005 as amended. The PPCFA has started the investigations and the interrogations on 28 February 2017, has pressed charges and referred the matter to the Cairo Economic Court on 7 March 2017. It is remarkable how swiftly the investigations were concluded in an unprecedented manner: the ECA referred the matter to the PPCFA in less than 10 working days and the PPCFA - in its turn - referred the matter to the Cairo...
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