Rwanda's army has arrested the president of the national football federation, General Jean Bosco Kazura, for travelling in South Africa without permission, a spokesperson said on Friday.

Kazura, a senior figure in President Paul Kagame's regime and a member of the closed circle of rebel leaders who ended the 1994 genocide, is also in charge of operations and

training in the Rwandan army.

"He had gone to South Africa for the World Cup without the authority of the military hierarchy... This is an act of insubordination," army spokesman Jill Rutaremara said on Radio Rwanda.

When the military realised it, they arrested Kazura, a Tutsi who grew up in exile in Burundi, upon arrival in Kigali.

His arrest comes after two other high-ranking Rwandan army generals, Emmanuel Karenzi Karake and Charles Muhire, were put in detention in April.