CAF - Chief Issa Hayatou seeks to extend leadership

CAF requires officials who reach 70 to step down but a change will be proposed and discussed at a congress in April.

Hayatou, 68, is in his seventh term of office, having been elected in 1998.

"Fifa does not have age limits for its committee members so CAF wants to bring this in line with them," executive committee member Kwesi Nyantakyi said.

Hayatou's current mandate ends in 2017 and he is seeking four more years until at least 2021, when he turns 75.

The CAFstatutes state that "at the time of their election, all candidates nominated to the CAF Executive Committee must be "Bona Fide" members of their national associations and must be under seventy (70) years of age."

But this will be scrapped if passed, as expected, at the congress.

The change in the rule follows success in recent years in adapting the statutes to limit potential opponents to Hayatou's rule.

CAF previously brought in a rule that candidates for its presidency can only come from the ranks of its own executive committee, a tight-knit club closely controlled by Hayatou. Fifa does not have the same restriction.

Cameroon-born Hayatou, a former athletics official, is already the longest serving senior member in Fifa structures, where he acts as vice president, and has had few challengers for power in Africa.