Emmanuel Maradas

Emmanuel Maradas (GB) - is originally from Chad in central Africa.

He studied law at Yaoundé University (Cameroon) and then journalism at Kinshasa University (DR Congo) and Lille in France, from where he returned to Ndjaména as head of news for the national radio in 1978.

When the civil war broke out in 1979, he returned to France where he worked for RFI (the French world service radio station) before joining the French press agency AFP.

He spent a total of seven years with AFP, mainly in the Middle East with postings to Lebanon, Cyprus, Syria and Egypt, where he became the agency's specialist in African sport. He moved to London in 1987, working on a range of pan-African media projects, and launched African Soccer magazine in 1992. As the magazine grew from quarterly to a respected monthly, Maradas was appointed in 1998 as a member of the FIFA and Confederation of African Football media committees.

Fluent in English, French, Arabic, Hausa and Lingala, as well as several other African languages, Emmanuel Maradas was a passionate supporter of the South African campaign to stage the FIFA World Cup™ in 2006, before the successful bid for 2010.

Since 2004 he has worked as a media consultant to FIFA, a high profile role that most recently took him around the world on the FIFA / Coca-Cola World Cup trophy tour in the run-up to Germany 2006.

Maradas has frequently appeared on CNN, the BBC World and other TV and radio stations in Middle East, Africa and beyond. He is married and father of one child.

This information was provided by the South African 2010 Local Organising Committee.

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