January 20

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Sports
DAILY HERITAGE MONDAY, JANUARY 20, 2020
15
AFCON rescheduling
exposes CAF leadership
THIRTY MONTHS ago, the
Executive Committee of
the Confederation of
African Football ratified the
decision to alter the scheduling
for the continent’s flagship football
competition, the biennial Africa
Cup of Nations.
Every other January, a pilgrimage of
sorts saw European clubs shorn off
their African players for three to four
weeks, and former Caf President Issa
Hayatou remained adamant in his insistence
upon that time slot, unperturbed
as Europe’s heavyweights gnashed their
teeth.
The deposing of Hayatou, however,
opened the door for Africa to align with
more global interests, and the decision –
in July 2017 – to move to a summer
Afcon was one of the first big legacies
of the Ahmad Ahmad presidency.
However, after just one edition under
the new modalities, Caf has run into
some difficulty of the entirely predictable
variety.
On Wednesday, following a meeting
of the Organizing Committee of the
Africa Cup of Nations in Yaounde, it
was decided that the 2021 edition
(scheduled to hold in Cameroun) would
now revert to the former January timing.
In a press release by the Cameroun
FA, this change was requested by the
host nation based on concerns over adverse
weather conditions in June and
July.
“After having heard the various arguments
expressed, in particular those of
the meteorological officials of Cameroun,
and the representatives of coaches
and player, the CAN Organizing Committee,
which received the mandate
from the Caf Executive Committee to
decide, acceded favourably to this request.
“Consequently, for the 2021 edition,
the Africa Cup of Nations will take
place in Cameroun, from January 9 to
February 6, 2021.”
Ostensibly, a tournament held in the
summer in Cameroun would feature
rain and thunderstorms, forcing a situation
where a number of matches could,
in theory, be rained out. On that
ground, this decision seems entirely
within reason.
However, it raises some unflattering
questions about the decision-making
within Caf itself, and clearly illustrates
that the 2017 decision was reached without
due consideration and an understanding
of the African terrain.
“After having heard
the various arguments
expressed, in
particular those of the
meteorological
officials of Cameroun,
and the
representatives of
coaches and player,
the CAN Organizing
Committee, which
received the mandate
from the Caf Executive
Committee to decide,
acceded favourably to
this request.
To begin with, the climate in Cameroun
is not peculiar to that particular
country; West and Central Africa have
lengthy rainy seasons, and so a summer
Afcon was always going to be tricky to
organize; only in the extremes – the
North and South of the continent –
• CAF President, Ahmad Ahmad
would a decision like that fly.
Never mind a meteorologist; climate
is something that has been observed
and accounted for going back millennia,
and is quite easily understood even by
laymen. Farmers have not been known
to rely on simulated clouds swirling on a
green screen in order to determine the
seasons.
Why then was the Caf Executive
Committee in a hurry to ratify such a
drastic change?
Clearly, not only was little thought
put into the decision, but it was not also
made at the behest or in the interest of
the very constituents over whom Caf
governs.
The rush to kowtow to European interests
and align with the globalist
agenda of Fifa President Gianni Infantino
has quite clearly backfired, and
Africa as a whole is now backed into a
corner. It is unlikely that the timing will
revert altogether, as this decision is a
one-off, so what does Caf intend to do?
The former timing, much as it annoyed
Europe no end, served a practical
purpose too in that it excluded no
African nations as potential hosts: in
January, it is cold the continent over
and, more importantly, there are no
rains.
During the 2019 Afcon in Egypt,
temperatures soared, and there were
genuine concerns raised by global player
union Fifpro over player safety in the
searing heat.
Unless the idea is to deny West and
Central Africa – the continental hotbed
of footballing talent, at least by export –
Afcon hosting rights in perpetuity, this
situation will repeat itself even as soon
as 2023, when Ivory Coast is in line to
host the competition.
On the other hand, if the idea is to
hold the Afcon in the summer only
when it is hosted by a Northern or
Southern African nation, then what is to
say that UEFA could not exert influence
over the bidding process for hosting
rights in Africa as time goes on?
All decisions have ramifications beyond
the surface level, and so while a
summer tournament appeared to deal
with the reluctance of clubs (and players)
to fully commit to the competition,
it has raised problems of its own: fitness
issues at the end of a long European
season, and now havoc with a scheduling
that could potentially alienate an entire
sub-region.
Source: Goal.com
•
•Algeria won the 2019 AFCON tournament