Former Executive Committee member of the Confederation of Africa Football (CAF) Musah Bility has petitioned the United Nations and Africa Union to swiftly step in and scrutinize the activities of FIFA and CAF over what he describes as corruption in both organizations.
Bility who describes his position as unusual is convinced that the two international organizations – AU and UN – are the only outfits that will be able to address his grievances.
The former Liberia FA President claims in a 6-page letter – sighted by footballmadeinghana.com – addressed to the UN and AU, that FIFA and CAF are involved in corrupt practices but they hide behind ‘suspension of associations’ to milk African governments dry.
He claims that the constant threats of suspension of members have barred governments from demanding accountability despite spending huge sums of monies of football in their respective countries.
“The constant threats and actual suspensions of member countries by FIFA have hamstrung individual UN and AU member Government efforts to bring much needed oversight and accountability to this most popular sport in those countries,” he noted in the letter.
“Conversely, the same Governments are compelled to spend millions of dollars annually to fund football activities, a cyclic investment that has no discernible return on investment for majority of these countries save for the occasional participation in FIFA events, which in and of itself, only ends up filling FIFA coffers,” he added.
The outspoken former CAF ExCo member argues that such a relationship is “dysfunctional, abusive, exploitative and dangerously lopsided.”
The administrator can’t simply understand why African governments will keep dolling huge sums of money into football, construct infrastructure and help in the organization and promotion of the sport but will be sidelined from demanding accountability because of threats of suspension from FIFA.
Bility is aggrieved that after some CAF officials were discovered to have embezzled $24m after FIFA ordered global audit company PWC to cobduct an audit following some extraordinary circumstances in CAF, the FIFA Ethics committee has not been seized of this matter, preferring instead to concentrate on the small fish, rumor and conjecture for political expediency.
The Liberian football administrator also cited the recent 10-year ban handed Guinea-Bissau FA President Manuel Nascimento for his role in protecting the victim of a mob lynching in his home country.
Bility vehemently insists that the matter had been reviewed and dispensed with by local judiciary who found him inculpable of any criminal offense, yet FIFA disrespectfully ignored the local judicial process to trigger extra-judicial processes which have seen Nascimento banned for 10 years from football.
To him (Bility), Manuel Nascimento was handed the ban because he has recently turned a thorn in the flesh of CAF in the last 4-years, questioning and probing the ‘open theft’ going on in the organization.
The passionate pan-Africanist and former CAF Executive Committee member wants the UN and AU to spark a global conversation on how to intervene and reform FIFA and organizations such as CAF in order to bring them in step with the global aspirations of the UN and AU.
