Former FIFA Member Associations Chief Kenny Jean-Marie Joins African Collaborations Group
Kenny Jean-Marie | Image by APO
African Collaborations Group (ACG) has appointed Kenny Jean-Marie, the former FIFA Chief Member Associations Officer, to its Advisory Board. He is the third senior executive to join the platform in the space of a week, following former FIFA Secretary General Fatma Samoura and Rugby Africa President Herbert Mensah, both confirmed on September 7. ACG originates and structures large-scale sport and entertainment district projects across Africa, and its board is now built almost entirely from people who have run the institutions it needs to work with.
Jean-Marie led FIFA's relationship with all 211 member associations from 2020 to 2024, overseeing FIFA Forward, the development programme that funds federations for infrastructure, coaching, national teams and grassroots football. He led the launch of the programme's third cycle, running from 2023 to 2026, which the release puts at USD 2.25 billion in committed football development spending globally. Before FIFA, he spent three years at the Fédération Française de Football, first as Chief of Staff to the president, then as director of institutional and international relations. Earlier still came nearly two decades in French government service, including postings at the Ministry of the Interior and the Ministry of Defence, and a degree from the École Nationale d'Administration.
Since March 2026, the French federation has had Jean-Marie rebuilding Guadeloupe's regional football body from scratch as its préfigurateur, after the previous structure went into judicial liquidation. That means drafting new finances, new statutes and new governance for a federation with no functioning one, while keeping FIFA and CONCACAF satisfied along the way.
"His presence on our Advisory Board reinforces the calibre of expertise we are assembling around ACG," said Nicolas Pompigne-Mognard, Founder and Executive Chairman of ACG, citing Jean-Marie's record running FIFA's member association relationships, his leadership of its Forward development spending, and his ongoing work rebuilding Guadeloupe's federation from scratch.
Africa’s Sports Economy
ACG's pitch is that Africa's sport economy, projected to reach $20 billion by 2035, has no shortage of stadiums and plenty of one-off venues, but almost nothing in the way of mixed-use districts that pay for themselves. Getting a government, a development finance institution and a private developer to agree on one of those projects requires more than a feasibility study. It requires people at the table whom ministries and federations already trust, because they have negotiated with them before, or run alongside them.
That is the case for hiring Jean-Marie over a generic development consultant. He has sat on FIFA's side of the table deciding how development money gets allocated, and he is now sitting on the recipient's side, rebuilding a federation that lost its own. Samoura brings the same duality from FIFA's top administrative job; Mensah brings it from Rugby Africa and World Rugby's executive board.
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