Drogba cleared to contest in Ivory Coast FA elections
Chelsea legend Didier Drogba has been cleared to contest for the post of the Ivorian Football Federation president in the forthcoming elections.
The election is scheduled to take place on April 23 with six candidates – Yatte Ellele Jean-Baptiste, Arnaud Aka, Laurent Kouakou, Idriss Diallo, Sory Diabate and Drogba in contention for the presidential seat.
Drogba, who is Ivory Coast’s all-time top scorer with 65 goals in 105 matches, is aiming to follow in Samuel Eto’o’s footsteps after the former Chelsea and Barcelona star became the President of the Cameroonian Football Federation (FECAFOOT) in December.
The FIF election first scheduled for September 2020, has been postponed on several occasions over issues of ineligibility of the candidates.
Last August, Drogba was declared ineligible by the FIF Electoral Commission with the allegation that he did have enough nominations but the decision was rescinded following intervention from the world football governing body, FIFA.
Back in July 2020, FIFPro (International Federation of Professional Footballers) took a step to suspend the Ivory Coast Footballers Association (AFI) because they did not support Drogba’s bid to become the next President of the Ivorian FA.