With Sepp Blatter suspended, the top job at FIFA falls automatically to Issa Hayatou, the son of a sultan from northern Cameroon who has ruled African soccer for 27 years.
FIFA said on Thursday that Hayatou’s status as the body’s senior vice president elevates him to acting president during Blatter’s 90-day suspension. But he comes with his own set of baggage, including previous corruption allegations and a reprimand by the International Olympic Committee.
The 69-year-old Hayatou also has health issues, managing a serious kidney illness that requires regular dialysis sessions. Hayatou’s ascension to the top job comes 13 years after he challenged and lost to Blatter in an acrimonious FIFA election.
The former physical education teacher and athlete comes from a well-connected family — his older brother was prime minister of Cameroon — and he became secretary general of the Cameroon Football Federation at 28, the head of the sportsministry in his mid-30s and president of the Confederation of African Football by 41.
In 2011, Hayatou was officially reprimanded by IOC, of which he is also a member, for receiving $20,000 from a sports marketing company in a FIFA kickbacks scandal. Hayatou claimed the money was used for genuine development programs by his African soccer confederation.
He was also accused, along with another African official, of accepting $1.5 million in bribes to vote for Qatar to host the 2022 World Cup. That heavily tarnished vote is a focus of one of the investigations by US and Swiss authorities into long-running corruption at FIFA. Hayatou denies any wrongdoing, as does Qatar, and his response to the accusations, like any criticism of him over the years, has been to hit back. He denounced allegations of vote rigging by a British newspaper as Western bias.
Despite being the most senior executive at FIFA after Blatter, Hayatou said he “will not be a candidate” for the presidency in the Feb. 26 election.