Welcome to the vicious cycle of “I Love You, I Do Not” syndrome. In asserting their power, FIFA has steadfastly stood against government interference in FAs Administration across the world. They even threaten national teams with suspension because of interference by political authorities in the affairs of National Football Associations. Yet, in African governments, in the south of the Sahara, are major funders of sports, but deprived of accountability powers towards the very FAs. Why would FIFA not be suspended for their interference in the administration of the Confederation of African Football as they often do for others? What about the famous slogan: Practice What You Preach!
How Did CAF Get Embroiled in Such a Mess?
It is from Samuel Eto’o’s country that the grip is tightening more and more on FIFA in general and on Gianni Infantino particularly. From Cameroon, uprising voices against CAF infantilization by the world football body, could be heard. This foul-smelling hold brought the former Indomitable Lions glory and Cameroonian legend, Joseph Antoine Bell, out of retirement to step up to the plate and display his discontent against this infantilizing paternalism of CAF by FIFA. He is joined in the fight for the restoration of CAF dignity so that it assumes its autonomy, by a Journalist and News Reporter-Producer of international notoriety, Alain Foka, him too, from Cameroon. He just tells it as it is and calls for the dismantling of such a dependency; megalomaniac fed by the permanent sycophancy of Gianni. Hailing from DRC and this article’s writer, Jeff M. Katala, Sport Analyst-Journalist and News Reporter residing in South Africa, I join forces to defend CAF despite its ramshackle administration, but it remains our common heritage. Like the Cameroonian duo, I am part of this Common Front to compete against FIFA as to relinquish their hold on CAF, at the speed of a raging cheetah.
It would in no way be a perfidy that we name the boss of FIFA, in his role of the main slayer of African football. Personally I refuse to keep my tongue stuck in my pocket, to name intuitu personae, Gianni Infantino, as many times as it is necessary to showcase the neo-colonizing demons of the franchisor against the franchisee. With all due respect to the poorly well-off lauders, owing their survival to manipulative virtues by the Italian-Swiss FIFA boss, to the detriment of the salvation values of CAF autonomy, FIFA have not yet seen the irresistible African football perestroika hurricane that would be a threat to their mandate, directed to Zurich straightforwardly, led by battered Africans and on behalf of Africa. The roaring of former “goalie” of Cameroon, Bordeaux and Marseille in France, spews wordy missiles against apparatchiks of the current state of affairs. Antoine Bell describes that “The arrival of Ahmad Ahmad seemed to mark the end of opacity in CAF management. We even bet on the emergence, in this environment, of a hitherto unknown concept, that of “good governance”. Risky bet though: fashioned in the same mold as their predecessors, the men supposed to embody this revival have kept the habits of the past. They advocated a change in the style of a campaign slogan, borrowed from FIFA; the very same that they (FIFA) could not change on their own if American justice system had not turned up the pressure heat. ”
A FIFA which refuse to put the own house in order before envisaging CAF ownership. The concern of most of many CAF bodies remains constant: that of preserving their positions and being on the monthly pay sheet, come hell or high waters, with no worry about the future of football in Africa. The nonchalance of this attitude within CAF constitutes fertilizing compost of this coup-d’état from Switzerland against CAF. But the test of time shows that FIFA and Infantino are not as white as snow. Alain Foka recalls “Should we consider that any accusation or suspicion brought against a member of a confederal executive would de facto result in his exclusion from any election, in which case, mutandis, the current Chief Executive of FIFA, Mr Gianni Infantino would be out of the race for future elections, for the same reasons. He would even be dismissible forthwith. Let us quickly recall that he is the subject of several investigations as part of the sprawling affair known as FIFAGATE. According to Swiss justice, the FIFA President intervened with the Swiss Attorney General to have an investigation against him dropped. Simply! In total no less than 8 investigations are opened against Infantino and the reasons are no less serious and severe. It must be recognized, to use the terms of the letter addressed to Mr Omari, that the same applies everywhere as per parallelism of forms (standardization of forms). So he (Infantino) should be suspended. “Whoever kills with the sword must die by the sword.
“Fifa do not come on board CAF willingly, haven’t they been invited by CAF – by Africans? In view of the chaos that reigns supreme therein, FIFA end up doing there what they would not allow themselves anywhere else”, says Joseph Antoine Bell. Infantino had embarked on his crusade to dominate CAF before and during the electoral ballot for the FIFA presidency to which he aspired. In February 2016 at CHAN in Rwanda, he said he was African before being European; that he is Africa’s friend; that he’s going to be able to help her. Far from us, grouped together in a cuckold Africa, Gianni stroked CAF for a long time, and ruffled its feathers to tame it at the appropriate time. Here we are! The sickness of a blindly new friendship and betrayed brotherhood that CAF never saw coming. In this fight, we emphasize to FIFA and Infantino that the priority of Africans will remain the preservation of this institution’s achievements, and we will never balk at freely and openly attacking CAF’s major strategic rivals. Here, we express our fundamental concerns about FIFA’s coercive and “unfair” management practices, but also about Zurich’s practices in terms of fair and respectful treatment they reserve to other confederations, however infinitesimal they may be, particularly the Confederation of Oceania; but not CAF – Both sides of the story have to be reflected.
By shelling our beans, if bruchids eggs escape our vigilance, the risk is that we shall find major kinds of damage to growing crops. This is how conditions for triggering the mechanism for CAF destabilization by FIFA were almost complied with, so that FIFA do cause the current mess of electoral diktat, with a blessing due to the naivety of CAF executives. Yet the set of CAF’s objectives is the most parsimonious portraits for Africa and Africans than the sum of personal ambitions of lauders and detractors. While CAF was once the sporting torch of the continent, it is now placed on alert, and its future looks bleak if this state of affairs drags on; an admission of helplessness because “if you lack dignity, others will disrespect you”.
In this state of affairs, we must embrace the unison credo and cultivate the security capacity to thwart the traps of putschists in FIFA. African public opinion has to be a double-edged sword; best defender of a CAF that works for its interests, as it can turn into a formidable guillotine of the same CAF when it choses swimming against the tide.
Foka is full of quibbles when he proclaims that “This sickly infantilization of which we definitely cannot be cured, with this image of the immature negro and unable to auto manage – Y’EN A MARRE (We are Tired); but really MARRE (Tired). Today, and more often, it is not about the image of Ahmad Ahmad or Constant Omari, the stake is especially that of the continent reputation that many would like to keep very small. Its leaders are ultimately the collateral victims of those who want to indirectly control African football only. So for all these reasons, young Africans, the African elites must speak out because letting these obscure interests become embedded with so much zeal in the choice of CAF President is to accept dishonour for our football, and for ourselves, as Africans…”
In this new century of transparency, African public opinion plays, in a vigilante’s role, the role of mirror in fixing the image of CAF and Africa to become autonomous. In these eras of quest for emancipation, democracy and legitimacy, FIFA, in their skin as a sincere partner as they do claim so pompously, could not require CAF to constantly be accountable to them, putting it under their tutelage like the United Nations in Kosovo in the past. It is up to Africans to own this wisdom: Those whose impotency was cured in our care, are the ones to own our wives next time from us.
“How come that it is the neighbour who tells you which of your children is the most worthy of you? Are there any identical FIFA behaviours in interfering in the electoral processes of other confederations? Elsewhere they were chased with their tails between the legs. It is up to Africans, executives, bankers and entrepreneurs, to take this business into their own hands, because it is a matter of business so that once again Africa is not a supplier of raw mining products. The ball is in our court. It is up to Africans to protect this precious wealth. It is up to various candidates to know who they are riding for. It is up to the voters to remember what Africa’s interests are, to change their software, not to believe that the manna that FIFA regularly pays out is a hand-out, assistance, a gesture of generosity; NO! NO! It is about their money, their share in the distribution of income generated by this institution to which they belong. They brought us their religion and we were converted thereto. They brought us football and we adopted it. Maybe it is about time for once that we change it to our advantage according to our interests”, concluded Alain Foka, in a vindictive and punitive mood.
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