'I Was Instrumental In Issa Hayatou’s Overthrow'

President of the Ghana Football Association (GFA), Kwesi Nyantakyi, has disclosed he was instrumental in the overthrow of Issa Hayatou as President of the Confederation of African Football (CAF).

According to him, it was difficult working with the Cameroonian and so, he was against his re-election and pitched camp against him.

Mr Nyantakyi further disclosed he would have resigned as the Vice President of CAF if Mr Hayatou had won the election held in March this year.

“I was against Hayatou and I was happy that my team won. I was very instrumental, I was very strategic and I was deep in the planning of the overthrow of Hayatou,” Mr Nyantakyi said.

“If Hayatou had won maybe I would have resigned from CAF because it came to a point that we could not work with him, not only me, but other people on my team...we took a risk and it paid off. It’s like a coup maker. When you fail in a coup, you commit the offence of high treason and you are punishable by death. When you succeed in the coup, you are the president. It’s a risk you take so we took the risk and I’m happy that we won. But we didn’t win on the basis that people liked us, but our message that we put across and that was our manifesto and I’m happy to announce that we are implementing it…,” he added in an interview with Accra-based Joy FM.

Mr Hayatou’s 29 years reign as President of Africa’s football federation was ended by Ahmad Ahmad.

Ahmad polled 34 votes to win the CAF presidential election with Mr Hayatou losing with 20 votes.