This week, the new CAF headquarters were inaugurated in Cairo. FIFA President Joseph Sepp Blatter flew in to take part in the affair Click to view caption It may seem like a little event to most of the world, but to football fans it is huge. FIFA President Blatter, and his CAF counterpart Issa Hayatou have joined forces for the first time since the acrimonious FIFA Presidential elections to open the new CAF headquarters near Cairo. The $4 million development is based in the new 6th of October City, 30km from Cairo, and will house executive members of the CAF, and its 56 person staff. The palatial building -- which is more than six times bigger than the old headquarters -- contains a conference room for 200 people, three meeting rooms as well as a gymnasium, Jacuzzi and sauna. It is the third home of the CAF since the confederation was established in 1956 -- its previous two headquarters have been in different suburbs of Cairo. Around 100 people attended the opening ceremony on Sunday, including UEFA President Lennart Johannson, the Egyptian minister for sports, and representatives of each of the football federations of Africa. The gathering was sizable, but the gathering of Blatter, Hayatou and Johannson was in itself a talking point, given the war of words between the three men following Hayatou's unsuccessful bid for the FIFA Presidency. Blatter went as far as to pay tribute to his African counterpart for the work he had done to make the new CAF headquarters a reality. "We should recognise the initiative taken by President Hayatou to build a new football house for CAF and I give him credit," Blatter said. The reason for Egypt great footing in the African football world, Blatter said, is the pyramids. "The house of African football is built on very solid foundations," he said. "Houses have been built here and have lasted for millenniums, so therefore the house of football will last for many millenniums." CAF members all praised the new development, saying they supported the decision to spend $4million on the project. "Football needs to develop at the grassroots too, but you can't do that from the street or the boot of a car," CAF Executive Molefi Oliphant said. He is right. What you put in, fundamentally, is what you get out. And on that level, African football has fruitful future ahead. Football fury FARAH Addo's allegations of impropriety against FIFA President Joseph Sepp Blatter have cost him his job on the organisation's referee's committee. The move makes Addo the latest victim of Blatter's clean-up of the world governing body's standing committees, after his win over CAF President Issa Hayatou in the FIFA presidential election in May. FIFA released the composition of the new standing committees for the next two years on Tuesday, and Addo's name was conspicuously missing from the list. Addo had been at the forefront of allegations of financial mismanagement levelled at Blatter in an acrimonious election campaign earlier this year. The FIFA president took out a court order in Switzerland to stop Addo from alleging that he had bribed officials to vote for him in the 1998 presidential election. Addo, who is a CAF vice-president and head of its referees committee, was nominated by Hayatou to serve at FIFA. But the world body wrote to CAF demanding substitute nominations. Belaid Lacarne of Algeria and Badara Sene of Senegal will now serve on the committee in his stead. In other FIFA election news, South African Football Association President Molefi Oliphant has been appointed to the 2006 World Cup organising committee, while Mauritania's Mohamed Lamine Cheiguer got a place on the organising committee for the 2003 Under-17 world championship in Finland. Libya's Saad Gaddafi was also appointed to the FIFA Club World Championship organising committee.
