The 66-year-old Cameroonian, first elected as President in 1987, will be the sole candidate for the elections in March after the CAF general secretariat controverisally ruled that Anouma was not eligible to stand.

CAF revised its election laws last September, during its General Assembly in Seychelles and now requires a Presidential aspirant to be a member of its Executive Committee to be eligible.

Anouma is not a voted Executive Committee member of CAF and only sits on it because he is a member of the FIFA Executive Committee.


The 58-year-old accountant from the Ivory Coast said he will take the matter to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS).

Last month the court threw out a complaint from the Liberia Football Federation, which requested the suspension of the recently adopted election laws.

Hayatou has twice before faced a challenge for his position but crushed his opponent both times and wants to stay on until 2017 for one final term.

Last year FIFA was forced to withdraw its appointment of Hayatou as chairman of the Organising Committee of the London 2012 Olympic football tournament because he was being investigated for alleged corruption by an independent Ethics Commission of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), of which he is a member.

Liberia FA President Hassan Musa Bility, who led the failed protest against Hayatou, has placed himself among the candidates up for election to the CAF Executive Committee - from the West B zone.

And South Africa's 2010 World Cup chief executive Danny Jordaan, who was also ruled ineligible to run for Presidency, will contest the elections to be the South zone representative on the Executive Committee.

Both men are up against the current post holders.