Kurdish head of Iraqi football body elected as AFC Executive Committee member

Abdul-Khaliq Masoud Ahmed, the Kurdish president of the Iraq Football Association (IFA) on Saturday was elected as a member of the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) Executive Committee.

ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – Abdul-Khaliq Masoud Ahmed, the Kurdish president of the Iraq Football Association (IFA) on Saturday was elected as a member of the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) Executive Committee.

The election was conducted during the 29th AFC Congress Kuala Lumpur 2019 in the capital of Malaysia.

Shaikh Salman bin Ebrahim al-Khalifa (Bahrain) was elected as the AFC President and FIFA Senior Vice President.

Ahmed, representing the state of Iraq, gained the second most votes in the AFC Executive Committee for West Zone with 37 votes out of 46 in total, followed by Hachem Haider (Lebanon), Salem Said Salem al-Wahaibi (Oman), and Hamid Mohammed Ali al-Shaibani (Yemen).

Ahmed previously served as Vice President of Erbil SC. He was also the financial secretary of the IFA from 2004 to 2011. Later, he became the Vice President of the IFA until 2014.

In May 2014, he was elected as IFA President. In mid-2018, he was re-elected as the IFA President until 2022.

Ahmed is the first Kurd to be the President of the IFA and member of the AFC Executive Committee. 

Editing by John J. Catherine