Former Chelsea striker and Cote D’Ivoire international, Didier Drogba has lost his bid to become the President of the Ivorian Football Federation (FIF).
Drogba, who could not make it to the second round of the contest lost out in the first after he garnered a paltry number of 21 votes against Yacine Idriss Diallo’s 59 and Sory Diabate’s 50 The Trumpet gathered.
The former Chelsea talisman’s intention to contest for the president of the federation had earlier suffered a setback last year after he failed to have the much-needed support through stakeholders’ nomination.
The Ivorian football stakeholders such as the coaches’ association and the players union, did not give the 44 years old the needed support to have his name included in the ballot.
Consequently, the International Federation of Association Football (FIFA) waded in by dissolving the federation and empowering the ‘Normalisation Committee’ to steer the process with the FIF statutes and electoral code rewritten.
The actions taken by the world football governing body FIFA gave Drogba the avenue to challenge other candidates for the federation’s presidential elections.
Though the majority of Ivorians wanted the two-times winner of the prestigious African footballer of the year award, 2006 & 2009, as their football federation president, the stakeholders in the Ivorian football federation feel otherwise, France24 reports.
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In the build-up to the election, Drogba was accused of pulling out of a public debate hours before it was due to be aired on a live TV broadcast according to an Ivorian state broadcaster.
However, Diallo, a senior FIF official in the 2000s, went ahead to win the elections in the second round after he pulled a total of 63 votes against that of his closest rival, Sory Diabate’s 61.
Didier Drogba in his congratulatory speech to the newly elected FIF President Idriss Diallo expressed satisfaction in the conduct of the election.
The elections went well, I congratulate the new president on his election,” he said.
