By Piers Edwards BBC Sport, Dakar

Dia says the committee has one year to complete its work

Senegalese football has taken a major step forward as the Ministry of Sport has announced the creation of a 'Normalisation Committee' to run the local game.

The decision has been taken with Fifa's approval, after president Sepp Blatter wrote to local officials on Friday to advise the best way out of the country's crisis.

"The Senegalese State is taking all responsibility to put football on the right path and make sure it exits its current situation," said Mamadou Dia, the Ministry's Chief of Staff.

"This new committee must re-establish the championship, unify the sporting movement, set out moves which will lead to good football as well as head towards a regular structure."

The new body, which must be in place for no longer than a year, will be led by Amadou Diagna Ndiaye, who currently heads Senegal's National Olympic Committee.

The Senegalese State is taking all responsibility to put football on the right path and make sure it exits its current situation Mamadou Dia

Chosen for his 'good morality, competence, dignity and knowledge of the sporting movement', Ndiaye will visit Fifa headquarters in Zurich this week to discuss the way forward.

Although Fifa regularly bans nations for governmental interference into the running of football, it has taken a soft stance on a crisis described by local Senegalese as unprecedented.

The West Africans' football has been in chaos ever since the 2002 World Cup quarter-finalists crashed out early at January's Nations Cup.

During the fall-out from Ghana 2008, 29 of the top 40 officials in the Senegalese Football Federation (FSF) resigned under huge pressure from the public.

Not only were they blamed for the debacle in Ghana, but a number of top clubs - including Diaraf and Jeanne D'Arc, Senegal's most successful sides - refused to contest any new league run by a federation whose competence it constantly questioned.

Now that the remaining FSF members have effectively been replaced by the 'Normalisation Committee', the country may soon stage its first-ever professional league.

Senegal fans are happy to see some sanity in their game

The much-heralded championship should have started earlier this year but the FSF's recent problems have meant that no league football has been played since September.

The new committee, which must set out fresh elections for FSF leadership, came about after the federation informed Fifa last month that it could no longer run football in the wake of the resignations.

Monday's decision will please Blatter whose letter suggested the creation of a Normalisation Committee which should contain 7-9 members and have a one-year mandate.

Interim national coach Lamine Ndiaye will also be relieved that the future is brighter as he prepares his side for the 2010 World Cup qualifiers, which start in earnest next month.

He will hope to take a lead from Senegal's beach soccer players who put the chaos to one side when being crowned African champions in South Africa on Sunday, and so qualifying for July's World Cup in France.