FIFA’s firing of all its development staff across Africa and the closing of offices in four countries was met with a barrage of criticism within the region last December.
Now the governing body of world football is facing a series of legal challenges from former employees to whom it has allegedly refused to make severance payments in accordance with national law.
African insiders say that the heavy handed approach by FIFA general secretary Fatma Samoura shows a disrespect for local laws, the rights of FIFA’s staff and is a politically motivated move by FIFA’s executive and its president Gianni Infantino to take political control of Africa, despite Infantino’s claims otherwise. In late December FIFA closed its four development offices in Cairo (Egypt), Abidjan (Ivory Coast), Gaberon (Botswana) and Yaounde (Cameroon). More than 20 staff were laid off with none offered alternative employment in the new offices to be established in Johannesburg (South Africa) and Dakar (Senegal). Staff in all four offices were informed by letter by Samoura that their employment was being terminated in mid-November, and that their final pay cheque would be December 31. They were told they would receive two months severance in compensation. Some staff had more than 10 years service with FIFA. Since being informed of their employment termination, there has been no visit from Samoura to any of the African offices to meet staff to discuss terms or to explain why their offices were being closed and why they were losing their jobs. FIFA’s new director of development for Africa and the Caribbean, Veron Mosengo-Omba, has also been conspicuous by his absence. Though Samoura and Mosengo-Omba have both have spent substantial time in Africa lobbying presidents of national associations. Letters and emails seen by Insideworldfootball show FIFA staff requesting decisions from FIFA and clarification on their severance payments. FIFA has stonewalled staff and has not paid the two-month payments they had initially offered. All four offices have made separate proposals that FIFA should honour local employment laws and custom. They proposed severance should be two months for each year in FIFA employment. FIFA has not responded to proposals. Lawyers for the staff in Cameroon have taken the severance claims to court in Yaounde with a demand that totals less than $40,000 (23.4 million central African francs). This is even lower than Infantino’s spend on chartered jets in his election year and considerably less than the $108,000 per month Samoura is paid by FIFA in her role as general secretary (CHF1.3 million is her annual salary). Samoura recently told the Swiss press that she was under-compensated at FIFA and that both she and Infantino were expecting bonuses to reflect and address that situation. Both Infantino and Samoura have been in their new jobs for about a year. The five Cameroonian staff had served FIFA for (in order of longest serving) 15 years 4 months, 11 years 3 months, and three years. Two staff had served for 2 years and 4 months. Samoura recently boasted on Swiss television that she had fired 81 staff out of more than 400 since she had joined FIFA. Insiders tell Insideworldfootball that number has already reason by at least two more. Under Swiss employment law companies can fire staff on the basis of essential restructuring of the business with very little recourse for the employee to law. Infantino’s new FIFA and his new team, led by Samoura, have been cutting through staff like a knife through butter. But Switzerland is not Africa. When FIFA closed its four African offices it announced it would open new offices in South Africa and Senegal. The choice of offices raised eyebrows as neither country was considered a hub within the football industry for football development. South Africa is the home country of Tokyo Sexwale who having pulled out of the FIFA presidential election at the last minute threw his support behind Infantino. Senegal is Samoura’s home country. The accusation in Africa is that FIFA’s executive is using its development function to win future support within the continent – an accusation that was made of former president Sepp Blatter. With elections for the presidency of the Confederation of African Football (CAF) just weeks away, Mosengo-Omba has reportedly been using his office and position to lobby for Ahmad Ahmad, the challenger from Madagascar running against Cameroon’s Issa Hayatou who is seeking an eighth term as CAF president. Infantino is keen for a presidential change in CAF having what has been reported as “irreconcilable differences” with Hayatou. Hayatou did not support Infantino for the FIFA presidency, though a number of African member associations did. With Mosengo-Omba working for Infantino politically in the region and lobbying support for Ahmad, backed up by Samoura, Hayatou is facing the first credible challenge to his presidency. But as one insider told Insideworldfootball: “If Hayatou wins, how can he (Mosengo-Omba) work in Africa.” The real casualties in this story are the development staff in Africa who for reasons that had nothing to do with them have all lost their jobs – they were just working in football development. Infantino when he was elected said he was going to “bring football back to FIFA”. In Africa Infantino’s FIFA achievement to date has been the opposite.