Africa-Press – Eswatini. For several years, the project germinated in the mind of Gianni Infantino, the almost omnipotent boss of FIFA whose actions in recent years has come under the microscope. Does Infantino do more of political appeasements, fairness in the game or promotes solely his own ideologies and projects? Is Africa becoming FIFA’s football experiment laboratory?
Between the creation of a “Peace Prize” given to Donald Trump, whom Infantino personally accompanied on some official trips, and the World Club Cup, everything is done to accommodate the whims of the almighty FIFA president. And who pays the cost? African football.
Since his takeover, Infantino has flattered African leaders as never before. Already pampered by Sepp Blatter for their importance in terms of votes (54), they were still treated with more delicacy by the new president and his administration who granted more subsidies without really looking at the realization of the projects to African countries.
While scandals of all kinds were in gestation, sexual abuse of minors in Gabon with no one held accountable despite the recommendations of an independent investigation report commissioned by FIFA, to the possible misappropriations related to women’s football in the Republic of Congo up to the alleged vote purchases during the last election in Senegal, the FIFA ethics committee hardly investigates and eventually sanction African leaders.
A boon for those who hold honorary but paid positions in various committees of CAF and or FIFA, and a way to hold them in case some wants to grow wings.
In fact, after having discreetly supported Ahmad Ahmad to win the elections in 2017 in place of Issa Hayatou, the same Infantino has managed with his advisors and close friends, mainly Mario Gallavotti and Véron Mosengo-Omba, to secretly infiltrate CAF.
Maintain CAF under economic and political perfusion
The breach of contract with Lagardère thus placed the African Football Confederation in a deplorable financial state; an opportunity for FIFA to position itself as the safeguard of an institution going through deep institutional and governmental crises.
As a bonus, it is indeed the same Infantino administration that lobbied to overthrow Ahmad Ahmad (the very one who had been appointed president of CAF) and then designated Patrice Motsepe as the only candidate by lurring the other interested parties to withdraw their candidacy.
With an “absent president”, CAF employees in Cairo hardly ever seeing him, the Confederation is mainly led by the secretary-general, Véron Mosengo-Omba. Despite the alarming controversial reports on his management, he remains in office with the silent approval of the members of an Executive Committee that serves no purpose except to complain off cameras about the treatment reserved for African football.
Economically and politically submissive, CAF was nothing more than the emancipation of the ideas of FIFA which incited to organize a Super League. A failed experiment proposed in ecstacy just like the League of nations being proposed today by CAF alongside a four years interval for the AFCON.
CAF is the only confederation to have lost its independence
In private, several African leaders were outraged by the treatment reserved for CAF. “Why did we launch the Super League at home when the Europeans rejected the project?” was often heard.
Kind of laboratory of experimental ideas of Infantino, African football responded to the orders of Zurich, proof is with the date of December 15 to release the players before this AFCON in Morocco. A date moreover not necessarily respected by some European clubs on which CAF remains quite silent.
Unlike all the other confederations, CAF accepted its fate, mainly its Executive Committee, too happy to have its bonuses and sometimes also apply for a position on the FIFA Council; a seat at 250,000 dollars per year.
Arguably, without a long-term vision, these same leaders proudly evoking their desire to “develop African football” have actually developed their own interests. In fact, when FIFA pushed to move the AFCON every four years, the decision was secretly made and announced by Patrice Motsepe, the president of a drifting Confederation that has just cracked its ‘golden egg’. Africa’s major competition which pulled an economic and media influx never seen on African football every two years.
In order to make space for the Club World Cup in the calendar – as was already the case to postpone this Moroccan AFCON in winter, CAF is silent and hopes to convince its audience with the launch of a Nations League, another project of FIFA. A way to show that African football is no longer decided on the continent but in Zurich.
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