CAF president Ahmad says he is open to Somalia hosting international games again and has invited the country to start with a friendly against neighbor Djibouti.

Ahmad made a two-day visit to Somalia on Monday and Tuesday, his first official trip as president of the Confederation of African Football after beating Issa Hayatou in an election last month.

Ahmad says holding friendlies first in the Somali capital Mogadishu ”will help a lot.”

Somalia President Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed used Ahmad’s visit to request his country be allowed to host international soccer again. The last international in Mogadishu was in 1988.

Somalia has been wracked by violence and chaos since the early 1990s, first because of a civil war and now deadly attacks by Islamist extremist group al-Shabab.