Souleiman Hassan Waberi, long-time president of the Djibouti Football Federation (FDF) and a FIFA Council member, has been removed from office in early October 2026 after a club-led vote amid police occupation of the federation’s headquarters.
On Monday, 5 October 2026 (following initial police presence the previous evening), police occupied the FDF’s national technical centre and headquarters. According to the federation, officers entered without presenting an administrative document or court order, ordered Waberi, members of the executive committee, staff and other officials to leave the premises, and then escorted around 16 club presidents into the building.
An extraordinary general assembly was held there. Delegates present (one account cited 39) voted unanimously to remove Waberi and the entire executive committee. An interim or ad hoc committee was established to manage the federation during the transition and prepare for new elections.
The meeting was attended by observers from the State Secretariat for Sports and overseen by legal officials, a bailiff and a consultant, who stated that the required two-thirds quorum had been met.
The FDF rejected the assembly as illegitimate, describing it as a “purported” meeting whose decisions were “null and void.” It argued that the required notice periods and procedures under its statutes and electoral code had not been followed.
The federation appealed to FIFA and the Confederation of African Football (CAF), warning that the use of state security forces to remove elected officials could constitute prohibited government interference.
Possible consequences, it said, included suspension of Djiboutian teams and clubs from international competitions, exclusion from events, and a freeze on development funding. Supporters of the vote maintained that the statutory number of delegates was present and that the process was valid.
Waberi had led the FDF since 2012, a tenure of roughly 14 years. He also sits on the CAF executive committee, previously held senior roles in the regional body CECAFA, and was elected to the FIFA Council in 2025 in Cairo—the first representative from East Africa on FIFA’s highest decision-making body. He is widely regarded as a close ally of FIFA President Gianni Infantino.
Opposition had been building for weeks. In early September 2026 a coalition of 27 clubs formally requested an extraordinary general assembly under the federation’s statutes to vote on removing the executive committee. The clubs claimed they had secured more than the two-thirds support of associate members required.
They listed governance failures including lack of financial transparency, failure to publish mandatory audit reports, repeated delays to competitions, administrative decisions taken without consulting clubs, inequitable treatment and discriminatory practices.
The FDF disputed the numbers, stating it has 67 members and that 45 (not 27) were needed to trigger such a meeting. Additional clubs later joined the opposition. The Secretary of State for Sport, Fatouma Ali Abdallah, then ordered the FDF to convene an extraordinary general assembly within 72 hours.
Djibouti’s presidency was reported to be monitoring the situation because of potential damage to the country’s international image, and FIFA had been informed.
Separately, Waberi and other officials face the prospect of charges following a police investigation into suspected embezzlement and money laundering. They were arrested in September 2024 after a government inspection identified financial and administrative irregularities, including weaknesses in procurement, cash management and financial controls, anomalies in payments to third parties, failure to pay tax on salaries and wages, and alleged misuse of cash payments totalling almost £500,000.
FIFA- and CAF-funded infrastructure projects in Djibouti, including an academy and artificial pitches, have also drawn criticism for incomplete work and procedural issues with tenders. Waberi has consistently denied wrongdoing, stating that FIFA’s monitoring mechanisms found no indication of problems with funds disbursed by the world governing body.
An interim committee is now overseeing the federation and preparing elections in accordance with the statutes. No definitive timetable for choosing a successor had been announced in the days immediately following the vote. Djibouti’s men’s national team remains one of the lowest-ranked sides in the FIFA rankings