Minister Vincent Meriton, the Seychelles Minister for Social Affairs, Community Development, and Sports, has joined forces with Minister Alain St.Ange, the Seychelles Minister for Tourism and Culture, to welcome delegates for the Confederation of African Football’s (CAF) annual meetings of the Standing Committees, the Executive Committee, and the Extraordinary General Assembly, in Seychelles. The meetings are scheduled for August 30 to September 5, 2012.

This CAF meeting is expected to the biggest gathering of high-ranking football officials in Seychelles. The meeting, set for September this year, will see Seychelles host the Confederation of African Football (CAF) Conference for the first time since the country became a member of this African football body.

The Seychelles Football Federation (SFF), the local coordinators of the meetings, said they have reserved rooms at the Ephilia Hotel, Le Meridien Barbarons, and Kempinski. Ephilia will be the main venue for the meetings, but the International Conference Centre of Seychelles (ICCS) and other venues may also be used.

According to the Seychelles Football Federation, over 200 delegates representing all the 56-member associations of CAF will attend the meetings.

Lured by Seychelles’ reputation as “Another World” tourism destination, quite a number of them will be bringing along their spouses and families on this trip.

The foreign delegates are expected to include several Federation Internationale de Football Federation (FIFA) officials; African sports ministers; and the President of CAF, Cameroonian Issa Hayatou.

Other than football, the conference is expected to be a great boost to the island’s tourism industry, as it will once again show that Seychelles is an ideal destination for such high-level conferences. Only last month Seychelles received the 2012 Routes Africa Forum, which ran alongside the RETOSA Board, as well as the ICTP and the Indian Ocean Vanilla Islands meetings.

CAF Vice President, Seychellois Suketu Patel, has been instrumental in bringing the conference to Seychelles. CAF, the governing body of African football, was founded in 1957. It is the continental football confederation with the most member nations (54), even more that the European Football Union (53). La Reunion is an associate member of CAF.

It is expected that the President James Michel of the Seychelles will open CAF’s 2012 General Assembly. This opening is planned for September 2.