New CAF General Secretary, Veron accepts appointment, vow to uplift African football

Less than one day after he was appointed the substantive General Secretary of the Confederation of Africa Football (CAF), Mr. Veron Mosengo-Omba has graciously accepted the offer just as he has promised to work assiduously with all the stakeholders to uplift African football.

Mosengo-Omba, the Chief Officer of the Federation of International Football Association (FIFA) Member  Associations (MAs) Division in Zurich, Switzerland, was on Saturday appointed the new General Secretary of CAF by the newly elected Executive Committee led by South Africa’s Dr. Patrice Motsepe.

The Democratic Republic of Congo national has however revealed that he had accepted the appointment with immediate effect and has expressed his gratitude to CAF and FIFA for the honour done to him.

Mosengo-Omba said in tweets on Sunday that he had accepted the appointment. The tweets read in parts: “It’s with great sense of pride, honour and humility that I accepted the challenge of becoming CAF General Secretary.

Despite working hard in the service of each and every Member of Associations of FIFA all around the world it’s no secret that Mother Africa where I was born has a special place in my heart”.

He also heaped words of praises on both FIFA President, Gianni Infantino and General Secretary, Ms Fatma Samoura

and his colleagues in the MA Division for “their confidence and cooperation in the last years”.

The new CAF scribe however promised “to commit all my energy to CAF,  under the leadership of our President Dr. Patrice Motsepe. To all the Member Associations in Africa I ‘d like to express a message of hope”.

“Working together we will achieve our objective of bringing CAF and African football to the very top level where it deserves to be”,

Mosengo-Omba stated in tweets.

Meanwhile, FIFA has confirmed that Véron Mosengo-Omba has left his role as Chief Officer of the FIFA Member Associations (MAs) Division with immediate effect to take on the position of CAF General Secretary.

Mr Mosengo-Omba initially joined FIFA in 2016 as Chief Member Associations Officer with responsibility for Africa and the Caribbean, and subsequently spent the past two years supporting all FIFA 211 MAs to implement the FIFA Forward development programme, as well as managing relationships with all FIFA MAs and continental Confederations in his role as Chief Officer of the dmCivision.

FIFA President Gianni Infantino and FIFA Secretary General Fatma Samoura issued a joint statement expressing their gratitude for the work that Mr Mosengo-Omba has overseen at FIFA.

“On behalf of all of FIFA, we would like to thank Véron Mosengo-Omba for his excellent work and wish him the very best of luck in his next challenge as CAF General Secretary,” it read. “FIFA also looks forward to working with him on future projects in helping to project African football to the summit of world football.”

A native of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Mr Mosengo-Omba was particularly involved in supporting the 54 African MAs in their FIFA Forward projects, in the development of youth and women’s football throughout the continent, and in the recent implementation of the FIFA Covid-19 Relief Plan.