Mamadou Antonio Souaré v. Confédération Africaine de Football

Mamadou Antonio Souaré of Guinea was declared ineligible for election to the CAF Executive Committee by decisions of the CAF Governance Commission issued on 29 January 2021 and 12 February 2021, ahead of the CAF Congress and elections scheduled for 12 March 2021. Souaré filed his appeal to CAS on 19 February 2021, submitted as a combined statement and memorial of appeal, together with a request for both an accelerated procedure and a stay of the ineligibility decision pending the outcome.

The CAS Court Office opened the case on 22 February 2021 and gave the parties two days to agree a procedural calendar for the accelerated procedure, applying Article R52(4) of the CAS Code. CAF, granted a short extension, produced a proposed calendar on 25 February; Souaré confirmed his agreement to it the next day, including a deadline of 2 March 2021 at noon for CAF's response to the stay request, while maintaining his own request for a stay. On 4 March 2021, the Deputy President of the CAS Appeals Arbitration Division rejected that stay request, meaning the ineligibility ruling remained in force and Souaré could not stand in the imminent election.

CAS proceeded with the accelerated procedure on the substance of the appeal, and, unlike the closely related Njoya matter decided the same week (where the full reasoned award followed only much later, in October 2022), issued its complete arbitral award on 11 March 2021 — the day before the CAF Congress itself, on the original expedited schedule the parties had agreed.

This case sat alongside two other CAS procedures arising from the same, unusually turbulent CAF election cycle: the Njoya matter above, and, separately, a disciplinary appeal by sitting CAF president Ahmad Ahmad. Ahmad's own suspension meant he could not stand for the re-election that 46 of CAF's 54 member federations had publicly called on him to seek, leaving South African businessman Patrice Motsepe as the sole remaining candidate, who won the presidency unopposed amid public allegations that FIFA President Gianni Infantino had improperly influenced the process. Read together, the three procedures show a single contested continental election generating multiple, simultaneous CAS proceedings within the space of days.