Soccer Star Drogba Will Vie to Be Head of Ivorian Football Body

(Bloomberg) -- Ivory Coast soccer star Didier Drogba said he’ll vie to be head of the local football association as he brushed off questions about plans to run the country.

“You don’t have to be president to make a difference,” Drogba said Thursday at a French business school event in the Ivorian commercial capital, Abidjan. “I think it’s important to have more options and then focus on my main goal right now, which is to be the president of the football federation.“

Drogba, 41, was formerly a striker at English Premier League club Chelsea and was capped 105 times by the national Ivorian side, according to the Rec.Sport.Soccer Statistics Foundation. Elections to appoint officials at the Ivorian Football Federation, currently headed by Augustin Sidy Diallo, are scheduled for November.

Drogba is one of Ivory Coast’s most recognizable exports. His face adorns billboards across the country endorsing companies including French telecoms operator Orange SA and Standard Chartered Bank Plc.

Asked at the forum whether in future he’d consider running for president, as former Arsenal player George Weah did in neighboring Liberia, Drogba said: “Today it’s not part of my plan.”

To contact the reporter on this story: Leanne de Bassompierre in Abidjan at ldebassompie@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Andre Janse van Vuuren at ajansevanvuu@bloomberg.net, Paul Richardson, Alastair Reed

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