October 6 – Police occupied the headquarters of the Djibouti Football Federation (FDF) on Monday and ordered the president of the federation Souleiman Hassan Waberi (pictured), who also sits on the FIFA Council and is a staunch supporter of FIFA president Gianni Infantino.
While the Waberi star has risen to FIFA as Infantino’s acolyte, at home he has come under increasing pressure from clubs who want him removed from the role.
Police first entered the FA headquarters on Sunday before reoccupying the building on Monday after a group of club presidents called an extraordinary general meeting aimed at removing Waberi and his executive committee.
The federation says 16 club presidents entered the building under police escort and held an extraordinary general meeting.
The FDF said the meeting was “null and void”, arguing that the notice periods and procedures required by its statutes and electoral code were not followed.
Reports from Djibouti say there were the necessary number of delegates to constitute a meeting and that they voted unanimously to remove Waberi and his executive committee and create an interim committee to run the federation.
In September, a coalition of 27 clubs came together to remove the executive committee, claiming they had the two-thirds support required by the bylaws. The FDF contested this figure, saying that it has 67 members and that 45 would be needed to call an extraordinary assembly.
As more clubs and delegates joined the decision against the federation and Waberi, the Secretary of State for Sports, Fatouma Ali Abdallah, ordered the FDF to hold an extraordinary general assembly within 72 hours.
The loss of Waberi, a cheerleader for Infantino in Africa and a key vote Infantino can rely on at FIFA Council meetings, suggests Infantino’s offensive grip on African nations’ votes in FIFA is not as solid as his supporters would have the rest of the soccer world believe.
Waberi has long been a controversial figure in Africa and if it wasn’t for the reciprocal support he has received from Infantino’s camp, he could have been banned from the game by FIFA’s Ethics investigations from 2021.
On 30 September 2025, Djibouti police arrested Waberi and several key figures following a financial audit of the FA by the Djibouti state that had been ongoing for several months. Waberi was suspected of embezzlement of public funds and money laundering.
The FDF and Waberi have long been at odds with the Djibouti government, which has often accused it of financial impropriety. Waberi in particular has come under scrutiny with suspicion over money used for national team travel and, more recently, over undeclared funding for new facilities.
In 2021 Waberi, recently elected as CAF 3rd The vice president, had to turn to FIFA for help complaining of government interference that had accused Waberi of financial mismanagement. After threats of suspension from FIFA for political interference and a high-profile visit from then-general secretary Fatma Samoura, Waberi was left alone and the travel ban imposed on him was lifted.
This time, the escalation of discontent with Waberi has gone beyond government suspicion until Djibouti’s football stakeholders have become angry enough to take action.
It will be much harder for Waberi to claim government political interference when there is such widespread action from within football against him – his days of protecting Infantino currently look limited.
However, Waberi has appealed to CAF and FIFA, saying that state security forces dismissing elected football officials is government interference. The reality is that the football officials were not sacked by the government, but by Djibouti football players.
FIFA’s response to government interference is to threaten sanctions, including the suspension of international competition, the exclusion of its clubs and national teams, and the freezing of development programs and funding.
This may have worked in the past and has been a useful tactic for Infantino to keep his fans in their place. But this time it will be difficult for Infantino and FIFA to intervene, such is the uprising of interested parties and the government’s insistence on maintaining order.
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