World football governing body FIFA has once again dipped its hands into the internal affairs of African football with the appointment of a normalisation committee for the Egyptian Football Association (EFA).

The development comes amidst uncertainty in the administration of the EFA following the abrupt resignation in July of former head Hani Abou Rida, a move which also claimed the rest of the board and the technical staff of the national team following Egypt’s disappointing outing in the 2019 Africa Cup of Nations.

With no leadership in place at the EFA, FIFA says it invoked art. 14 par. 1 (a) and art. 8 par. 2 of its Statutes which empowers it to under “special circumstances” appoint a normalisation committee for member associations ” for a specific period of time”.

Consequently, a five-member normalisation committee has now been set-up to oversee Egyptian football for a period “no later than 31 July 2020 or as soon as it has fulfilled all of its tasks.

The committee which will be subject to a FIFA background check has been imbued with the responsibility of running the EFA on a daily basis, reviewing and aligning the EFA Statutes with that of FIFA and to oversee the elections of new EFA members and a new board.

This recent intervention in the internal affairs of an African member association comes on the heels of the controversial decision by FIFA to send its Secretary General Fatma Samoura to take over the running of CAF as “FIFA’s Delegate for Africa”.