Sudan Football Association elects new chairman

On Sunday, the General Assembly of the Sudan Football Association (SFA) elected Dr Kamal Shaddad as president for the 2017-2021 term.

Shaddad won 33 votes out of 62 votes, while incumbent chairman Mutasim Jaafar received 28 votes. The third candidate, Salah Idris, announced his withdrawal a few hours before the start of the election.

The election process was based on a new statutes, set by the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA), after it froze the SFA membership on 6 July because of government interference.

A group within the Association, calling themselves the 30 April Group elected Abdelrahman Sirelkhatim as the new president, though the FIFA had previously stated that no election should take place until late 2017. After president Jaafar protested the procedure at the FIFA, the Sudanese Minister of Justice appointed Sirelkhatim as the new SFA chairman.

The FIFA responded by giving the SFA an ultimatum to cancel this decision. When this did not happen, it suspended the activities of the SFA.

A month later, the FIFA cancelled the ban after Prime Minister Bakri Hassan Saleh ordered the cancellation of the Ministry of Justice’s decision.

Sudanese opposition parties strongly criticised the government's stance. The security apparatus prohibited the media to report on the debacle.