CAF Chief Issa Hayatou Should Resign
Issa Hayatou, far right.
Our post last week condemning CAF’s decision to ban Togo for two Africa Cup of Nations tournaments for withdrawing from this year’s event following the deadly attack on their team bus mirrored much of the world reaction: it saw the draconian punishment as rash, insensitive and wrong.
Not everyone agreed, though. Gabrielle Marcotti defended CAF for following the principle that governments should not interfere in sporting matters no matter the circumstances, as it was Togo’s government who reportedly made the final decision that Togo’s team should return home for three days of national mourning (CAF then took this as a de facto withdrawal from the tournament, even though Togo then said they wanted to return and play). I’ll cite Marcotti in full:
On the face of it, the decision seems ludicrous. You enter the Africa Cup of Nations, you get attacked by terrorists, watch as two of your delegation die before your eyes and withdraw from the tournament to mourn. And then comes the most stinging blow. You get banned for the next two tournaments by the Confederation of African Football (CAF).
CAF’s announcement that Togo would not be allowed to enter the next two continental tournaments met howls of outrage. And, indeed, it is shocking, until you read CAF’s justification. Togo were banned not for withdrawing from the competition — given the circumstances, it would have been more than understandable — but because the decision to pull out was taken by the Togolese Government, which apparently overruled the players, who reportedly wanted to play.
And CAF, like Fifa and Uefa, has strict rules about government interference in sporting matters: the decision should have been made by Togo’s football association and it should have been final.
If this decision — however painful — is the first step in CAF standing up to government meddling in African football, then it is welcome. But if it fails to follow through the next time some local “strongman” starts giving “advice” to his FA or plunders the football coffers, then it will feel as if Togo are being singled out.
We criticised Marcotti for this piece on Monday, with one commenter strongly disagreeing and defending this position. Yet I’m still convinced this is a hasty and political decision by CAF themselves. And this would seem an extraordinary incident on which CAF should take such a first step, however worthwhile the principle, to ending “government meddling” in African football — this isn’t a case of squabbling over team selection or player bonuses or TV money, but a true tragedy that actually should make us pause and realise football is a game, and sometimes life, or mourning over the loss of it, should take precedence.
Here are several questions I’d have for Issa Hayatou, CAF’s chief, regarding it:
- Why was CAF’s decision to ban Togo announced before the tournament was even over, on the eve of the final itself? Was there no consideration given to CAF taking a full investigation into what had happened in Cabinda and after, and what role Togo’s government had exactly played in the return of the team to Togo? How could this decision have been reached so swiftly and abruptly, without any apparent input from Togo?
- Togo’s government themselves said CAF failed to contact them, even to offer sympathies, in the aftermath of the attack. Why was this the case? Wouldn’t communication between CAF and Togo’s government potentially have allowed them to find a mutually agreeable way for Togo’s team to leave, mourn and return?
- Did CAF, in the wake of the horrendously traumatic attack on Togo’s team, offer to delay Togo’s next game in order to give the team time to mourn?
- Relatedly, is CAF planning a full, independent investigation into who knew Togo were travelling by bus to Cabinda, and who accepted this arrangement?
Furthermore, it was clear from the conflicting statements coming from the players, team and government of Togo in the days after the tragedy that nobody was sure what to do or how to react, and whether the team should play or not. Never before has a football team faced such a swift decision in the aftermath of such tragedy, while a player’s life was still hanging in the balance. CAF has consistently shown a shocking lack of compassion for the position Togo’s players, through no fault of their own, found themselves in.
Togo national team coach Hubert Velud expressed his fury at Hayatou for the decision today: “It’s a scandal. This decision shocked us. I wonder on what logical basis such a decision was taken. Everyone knows that the morale of the players hit rock bottom after seeing death in Cabinda. It was impossible for them to play a football match.”
He went on to say he was particularly angry about Hayatou “because I realized that he’s an opportunist who serves his personal interests in the name of football. I’m more frustrated than you can imagine. Issa Hayatou should have taken into consideration the sentiments of the Togolese people before such a decision was taken. Hayatou proved that he’s not capable of running CAF, he should review himself.”
FIFA, of course, with Blatter facing reelection soon and needing CAF’s support, will do nothing. Hayatou will not do the decent thing and resign, I am sure, but perhaps at least the rest of Africa’s football associations will do the decent thing and kick him out at their next election.
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Tom Dunmore is the founder and editor of Pitch Invasion. Follow him @pitchinvasion on Twitter.
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Kinda makes you appreciate Jack Warner, just a little bit.
Too little investigation, too harsh of a punishment, this sounds like a criminal case in a third world country, not a….not a…..not a…..
I wouldn’t call for a resignation Tom – don’t get caught up in their either/or games. Togo can schedule some wicked friendlies for those dates and maybe generate some cash. And, there is the added benefit of not playing in the CAN, which should not be underestimated.
Togo for the Gold Cup!
The rationale behind CAF’s decision is even more specious when one considers that many national football associations in Africa have been and/or are currently run by government appointees, political insiders and presidential relatives.
@Chris — Maybe Hayatou will open his own travel agency!
We’ll never know for sure, but I suspect that the timing of the banning order was a favour to someone important in the Angolan government or the Angolan FA. From what I’ve read the CAN was hardly a success by any measure, and they may have wanted their egos soothed by someone else being blamed for something. It would be shameful, but not out of keeping with human nature, if there were not people in the CAN organising committee who blame Togo for casing the tournement in a bad light.
I’m not normally a conspiracy theorist, but this decision has had one other beneficial effect for the powers-that-be in Angola. No one is now talking about the tournement itself. All the post-tournement coverage has focused on this decision. The fact that attendances were very poor and the standard of play was sleep-inducing has largely escaped media comment.
Or maybe the CAF just has terrible judgement and is as insensitive as it is incompetent. I suppose that’s plausible too.
Yay, I got an indirect mention on Pitch Invasion! Keep up the good work Tom.
I’d like to know exactly what “government intervention” entails. How the hell has North Korea (for example) not been banned by FIFA (& the AFC if they have a similar rule in place)?
I’m not going to defend CAF, but I do think it is worth addressing the notion in the comments here that “the CAN was hardly a success by any measure.” As I wrote earlier in the week, the worst thing about the CAF decision to me is that it allows casual fans around the globe to reinforce their stereotypes of everything about Africa as dysfunctional. Angola 2010 obviously had many glaring, inexcusable problems. But it is a shame we can’t also recognize some accomplishments–like the simple fact of building four nice stadiums out of the rubble of decades of colonialism and civil war. And in regard to attendance, it is hard to figure out the whole story but I did note with interest comments from Jonathan Wilson (who was rarely complementary to Angola during his time there) writing his CAN diary for the Independent:
“There was a theory that as the novelty wore off, local interest in the tournament would wane, but the queues that stretched twice round the block for tickets for tomorrow’s quarter-final between Cameroon and Egypt suggest Angolans remain as enthusiastic as ever. Whatever faults there have been in the organisation, and whatever difficulties with the infrastructure, this Cup of Nations has had better local support than any in recent history.”
Attendance wise, I just tried to look it up and found this as the recent stats for average ACON crowds:
2010 Angola — 18,741 per match
2008 Ghana — 22,313 per match
2006 Egypt — N/A
2004 Tunisia — 17,297 per match
2002 Mali — 17,813 per match
2000 Ghana/Nigeria — 21,172 per match
1998 Burkina Faso — 12,900 per match
1996 South Africa — 22,099 per match
So Angola seems to have been right around the median — which is not bad considering how difficult it is to travel to, and how little infrastructure it has for tourists. There were indeed a few games that had virtually no one there; Malawi v Algeria gets mocked a lot, but that was played in the middle of a week-day (when it was around 100 degrees) at the Luanda stadium out in a suburban area that all the journalists noted was almost impossible to travel to because of traffic. But otherwise (with the very significant exception of the Cabinda situation) it seems to me as though it is not fair to just write off the whole tournament (or the whole place–as often seems to be the implication) as an abject failure. That just panders to stereotypes and over-simplifications.
Very pertinent points, Andrew. Certainly Angola did a hell of a job hosting the tournament considering what they’ve been through. England couldn’t even sell-out Euro 96, after all, despite the rosy memories of that tournament — many of the games were played in front of crowds that were (in reality) barely in five figures.
Andrew, again you are a beacon of common sense and a shining light of truth and perspective. Thankyou!
In fairness I do think the standard of the tournament was fairly poor as I wrote on Just Football. There was a massive dip in quality compared to Ghana 2008 and one can only speculate as to why that is (Didier Drogba claimed he was scared Cote d’Ivoire would be ’shot like rabbits’ while in Cabinda – who knows to what extent that affected their play and the play of others).
But the extremely lazy stereotype that everything was poorly organised and ho ho ho look at Africa making a mess of things again is wholly unfair on a nation fresh out of a 27 year civil war. The Cabinda incident aside, of course there were some teething problems and issues that maybe didn’t go to plan. But like you say, Angola built 4 brand new and highly impressive stadia for this competition (in less time than it took to rebuild Wembley might I add) and got many things very right.
Let’s not bury the tournament under all the old cliches and instead judge it on its own merits.
Hold on, now I think I’ve been misrepresented. I’m not one to stereotype Africa. I’ve been there four times and spent a lot of my university life studying it. I perhaps simplified things in my comment, but still have doubts that by objective measures the tournement was a success.
Yes, they built four new stadiums. Now that the everyone’s gone home, who will use them? It is extremely doubtful that they will generate enough income pay for their own maintenance. They will either decline or require public subsidy. Angola is a country with serious social challenges ahead, does it need to have these white elephants?
The MPLA government is a brutal dictatorship. Their only saving grace is that for most of their existence they were opposed by a more butal insurgency, UNITA. Yes, Angola did well to host such an event considering its history, but that does not mean it was a good idea. Considering how many challenges Angola has, syphoning money off for a grand circus is a decidedly bad idea.
African governments have, since independence, opted for grand prestige projects. It has been one of the major curses of post-colonial life. The Volta River Dam in Ghana, the cathedral at Yamasoukro, the entire city of Abuja, are all examples. These projects have boosted the egos of various rulers, and taken valuable resources away from the people they rule.
The MPLA is an oil backed regime. The last I heard they had not published the government accounts for two decades. The CAN is undoubtedly someone’s pet project. He is probably pretty proud of it. It hasn’t really helped his country.
The CAN should be held in countries that have more-or-less deomocratic regimes and that don’t need to build new stadiums. If that limits the possible candidates to a handful of countries for the time being, so be it. Otherwise you just end up with white elephants and giving ego boosts to tyrants.
Reasonable opinions. I don’t necessarily think the earlier comment was stereotyping, but I do worry that without clear evidence making absolute judgments and de-contextualized condemnations panders to stereotypes (as was the theme of my post earlier in the week). So I tried to focus on the actual evidence.
The stadium issue is interesting in that regard. It’s true that Angola’s oil money is being used in sketchy ways. But I wonder if it is not better to build stadiums in Angola than luxury villas in Portugual (which I fear is the other option). That doesn’t excuse it, but it does make it complicated.
Likewise, with the white elephant argument on the stadiums–again, I’d just like to see the evidence. I think the white elephant argument could be better made in South Africa, where they already have plenty of decent stadiums. But (as I commented a few months ago in relation to my post on the Angolan stadiums) the infrastructure in Angola has been destroyed. I’ve been to games in the old Citadela in Luanda and it was a death trap–an aging concrete hulk that was a disaster waiting to happen. And whether we like it or not they will keep playing soccer in Angola, people will want to watch, and they will need somewhere to play. In fact, the Angolan domestic league is not bad for Africa (partially because some of the teams benefit from oil money). And I’m pretty sure the new stadiums will be used for the domestic league. They will also be used for other sports–the running tracks are not popular among soccer fans, but they do ensure use (even if it means no EPL team will play there on tour). The alternative of the old crumbling stadiums was not safe nor good for the communities. So I suspect the Angolan stadiums will actually be used much more than many world stadiums–even it requires public subsidies (remember also that Angola is technically a socialist country–so conceptually they don’t mind public susidies as much as those who think the free market cures all ills). But if there is evidence to to the contrary I’d genuinely like to see it.
Finally, I do have some sympathy for the concept of political criteria for hosting sports events. But I just worry that is a slippery slope. Who gets to decide the criteria? Us, as enlightened Westerners? As the comment notes, one of the trickiest things about Angola is its wealth of oil. And oil is tricky because the world is addicted to the stuff. So maybe the good old USA shouldn’t be able to host any mega-events (ie, the World Cup) until it cures its addiction to oil. I’d sign that petition. Instead, Hillary Clinton made quite a pleasant visit to Angola a few months ago, and gave no indiction that the US gov would agree to the claim of the Angolan gov as a “brutal dictatorship.” The Angolan government does, of course, have many inexcusable problems–but de-contextualizing that and opining with absolutes also strikes me as problematic.
Tonight while I was blogging away a report came on the BBC World Service news about the legacy of the CAN in Angola. The points are very relevant to this discussion. I wish I could take credit for thinking of them.
First of all, the reporter doubted the stadiums would get much use because there are so few training facilities and grass-roots pitches in Angola. Sounds like there is an active league, though, so I’m not sure.
Also, it appears that Angola hosted the basketball version of the CAN in 2007 (its called Afrobasket: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FIBA_Africa_Championship_2007). The reporter said the venues built for this tournement have already fallen into disrepair. Angola is pretty good at Basketball, perhaps much better than they are at football. If this is true, then I think there isn’t much hope for the football stadia. Time will tell.
The MPLA has been in power for over thirty years. It is corrupt and bloated by petrodollars. If the CAN legacy is spoiled it won’t be the first great opportunity they’ve cocked up. After all, the such oil wealth in a supposedly socialist country should have led to a big increase in living standards for all Angolans. Sadly, as you said, it has been more likely used to buy Portugese villas than something the people truly need.
I’m not this cynical about all of Africa. I just think Angola is one of the few remaining old-school dictatorships. Thankfully they are dying out. Two of the remaining ones, though, are Gabon and Equitorial Guinea (co-hosts for CAN 2012!)
It certainly isn’t a coincidence that both Gabon and Equatorial Guinea have very significant oil reserves.