{"id":1018630,"date":"2022-03-11T17:41:34","date_gmt":"2022-03-11T17:41:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/03\/11\/didier-drogba-waits-as-ivory-coast-federation-elections-postponed-again\/"},"modified":"2022-03-11T17:41:34","modified_gmt":"2022-03-11T17:41:34","slug":"didier-drogba-waits-as-ivory-coast-federation-elections-postponed-again","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/03\/11\/didier-drogba-waits-as-ivory-coast-federation-elections-postponed-again\/","title":{"rendered":"Didier Drogba waits as Ivory Coast federation elections postponed again"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div>\n<div class=\"td-post-featured-image\">\n<figure><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"696\" height=\"385\" class=\"entry-thumb\" src=\"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/Didier-Drogba-190709-Watches-G-1050-696x385.jpg\"   alt=\"Didier Drogba \u00a9 Gallo Images\" title=\"Didier Drogba \u00a9 Gallo Images\"\/><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Didier Drogba \u00a9 Gallo Images<br \/>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<p>Elections to appoint a new president of Ivory Coast\u2019s football federation (FIF) have been postponed once again, meaning former Chelsea striker, Didier Drogba, must wait yet further before finding out if he can stand.<\/p>\n<p>Ongoing issues over the eligibility of candidates \u2013 including former Ivory Coast captain Drogba \u2013 have caused an 18-month delay of proceedings, with the polls originally earmarked for September 2020.<\/p>\n<p>The latest polls were set to be held on 23 March but these have now been called off, without a new date being set.<\/p>\n<p>A normalisation committee appointed by world governing body Fifa has been running the game in the West African country since December 2020.<\/p>\n<p><!-- \/22191989129,1002554\/MGL\/mgl_ado_atunwa_300x250 --><\/p>\n<p>Both Fifa and the Confederation of African Football (Caf) sent a joint letter to the FIF last Friday expressing concerns about the electoral process, leading to the latest delay.<\/p>\n<p>A statement by Mariam Dao Gabala, president of FIF\u2019s normalisation committee, said the decision had been taken to \u201cfind an adequate response to the provision relating to sponsorships [backers for candidates]\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>She added the electoral process would resume \u201cas soon as possible\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>Ivory Coast will host the 2023 Africa Cup of Nations, which is scheduled to be held in June and July next year.<\/p>\n<p>Drogba, who made more than 100 international appearances for the Elephants, was told in August 2020 that he and another candidate\u00a0were not eligible to stand in the polls\u00a0to become FIF president.<\/p>\n<p>The 43-year-old had been greeted by a large crowd at FIF headquarters in Abidjan when he submitted his application.<\/p>\n<p>The federation\u2019s electoral commission ruled that Drogba and the other candidate did not meet its long list of eligibility criteria, owing to technicalities regarding those who had sponsored their nominations.<\/p>\n<p>Drogba\u2019s candidacy was rejected after two of his needed eight backers were found to have also given their support to a rival.<\/p>\n<p>Fifa stepped in soon after and put a halt to the elections as it\u00a0demanded to see various documents,\u00a0giving Drogba hope that FIF\u2019s decision would be reversed.<\/p>\n<p>The election process was delayed again in December 2020 when Fifa installed a normalisation committee to run Ivorian football until new elections could be organised.<\/p>\n<p>That mandate was initially scheduled to expire at the end of 2021, but it has been extended until the end of this month \u2013 and it appears the election process is yet to satisfy Fifa and Caf.<\/p>\n<p>            <!--  [embed]https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=videoseries[\/embed]<!--\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>--><\/p>\n<div class=\"youtube-embed\" data-video_id=\"9fOl0GiJ7OI\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Mourning Late Joy Brands GM: Elvis Kwashie goes home tomorrow - Premtobre Kasee on Adom TV (11-3-22)\" width=\"696\" height=\"392\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/9fOl0GiJ7OI?feature=oembed&#038;enablejsapi=1\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Didier Drogba \u00a9 Gallo Images Elections to appoint a new president of Ivory Coast\u2019s football federation (FIF) have been postponed once again, meaning former Chelsea striker, Didier Drogba, must wait yet further before finding out if he can stand. Ongoing issues over the eligibility of candidates \u2013 including former Ivory Coast captain Drogba \u2013 have [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1018633,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[1314,5905,4580,5906,5876,1316,369,5907],"class_list":["post-1018630","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-coast","tag-didier","tag-drogba","tag-elections","tag-federation","tag-ivory","tag-postponed","tag-waits"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1018630","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1018630"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1018630\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1018630"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1018630"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1018630"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}