By Andrew Warshaw
January 18 – FIFA presidential candidate Tokyo Sexwale’s hopes of gaining the unanimous support of his own African confederation have suffered a further blow with Ghana saying the South African lacks the requisite leadership skills.
The top brass of the Confederation of African Football has already stopped short of officially endorsing the Continent’s only candidate and will make a decision early next month.
But Ghana FA president Kwesi Nyantakyi has given a strong indication that Sexwale will have to look elsewhere to pick up sufficient backing in his bid to succeed Sepp Blatter on February 26.
Sexwale, political prisoner turned multimillionaire mining tycoon, has made much of his association with South Africa’s most revered anti-apartheid and political icon, the late Nelson Mandela. But Nyantakyi said “sleeping in the same prison room with Nelson Mandela is not enough to win the FIFA presidency”.
“We have listened to all the candidates and we know what each of them is bringing on board and who shares in our vision,” he told an Accra-based broadcaster.
“You can read from them that some are very serious about their bid and others are just walking through, just like Tokyo Sexwale.
“For Sexwale, he came to one of our executive committee meetings at CAF and all his campaign messages were that; I was the rugby secretary at Robben Island, I was the chairman of the football team at Robben Island, I slept in the same hotel room with Mandela at Robben Island and so on. But it is funny because those things are not enough to win you the FIFA presidency. I can say I’m even (more) experienced and competent than him.”
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