The President of the Confederation of African Football, Ahmad Ahmad, has been accused of multiple charges of sexual harassment from both CAF staffers and consultants brought in to work on the continental football body’s events.
Insideworldfootball claimed to have seen copies of a police report filed in the United Kingdom alleging harassment in Morocco as well as a letter sent from the CAF secretariat to FIFA, bringing to the world football body’s attention complaints by four separate CAF staff members of Ahmad’s persistent alleged sexual harassment.
He was ac used of having pressured some of the women to come to his hotel room as he travelled on African football business.
The report further claimed that there are five cases now against Ahmad, four of them before FIFA, which have yet to be acted upon or commented on or even acknowledged.
The newspaper said: “Ahmad’s sexual harassment activity is not a sudden change in behaviour but goes back to 2017 when he was elected as president of CAF. That he has lasted this long before the rumours become official complaints points to multiple cover-ups by officials, especially in Morocco, and a reluctance by FIFA to act against one of president Gianni Infantino’s staunchest supporters.
“Because the victims are Muslim, most of them, because of their religious culture, are afraid to come forward for fear that they will be blamed for Ahmad’s behaviour and stigmatised, or worse, as a result.
“The failure of FIFA to act to protect women from this behaviour is almost as scandalous as the behaviour itself. What is emerging is not a single isolated case but a clear pattern of behaviour over a long period of time.”
The website also hinted that a CAF contractor, who spoke on condition of anonymity, was drafted in to help with translation work at a CAF symposium in Rabat, Morocco in June 2017, revealed how she was propositioned by Ahmad twice during the conference and in the lift of the conference hotel.
In the incident in the lift at Sofitel in Rabat, Ahmad allegedly pushed himself close to her and asked her to come to his room.
When she protested and said she would make a complaint, he allegedly replied that he was the president of CAF and what did she think was going to happen.
The report said: “The British woman, who has no involvement in football, returned to the UK and ‘decided to move on with my life’. It was only when she heard the stories of similar harassment of other woman by Ahmad that she decided that unlike them, she was in a position to do something and decided to file her own report to the Metropolitan Police in Islington, London.”
That report was filed in early April.
The response from the police, according to the newspaper, was: “In the United Kingdom this allegation would be investigated as a sexual assault (Section 3 Sexual Offence Act. However this offence has occurred in Morocco which is not part of the United Kingdom or Wales. Unfortunately the Metropolitan Police do not have any legal jurisdiction over offences that happen outside of the UK. A request has been made to transfer this report across to the Moroccan authorities.”
Reuters in a report on Monday confirmed that FIFA had been inundated with such report.
The news agency said neither FIFA nor Ahmad commented on the accusations as reported in a similar story on this news website.
