By Andrew Warshaw
March 11 – In the end, all the campaigning and lobbying proved fruitless – for three of the candidates at least.
South African billionaire Patrice Motsepe breaks new ground tomorrow when he is crowned the first ever English mother tongue leader of African football, a radical change from the past amid hopes that he can sweep away the glaring mismanagement and dysfunctional self-interest that for years has plagued the Confederation of African Football hierarchy.
Whilst it is not unusual in presidential elections of this kind for candidates to pull out at the last minute, few observers predicted that all three of Motsepe’s opponents would withdraw at the same time.
But that’s exactly what happened in the cases of Jacques Anouma of the Ivory Coast, Senegal’s Augustin Senghor and Ahmed Yahya of Mauritania, giving Motsepe, the preferred choice of FIFA president Gianni Infantino, a clear run at being elected CAF president unopposed at the vote in Rabat.
When he launched his campaign late last year, Motsepe, for all his business acumen as a mining magnate, was regarded as something of an underdog having had no affiliation with any national association or been involved in the administration of CAF.
Owner of leading South African top-flight club Mamelodi Sundowns (as CAF president, he will have to cut links with the club) he was nominated by CAF vice-president and South African soccer association (SAFA) boss Danny Jordaan who backed his bid to move “from the boardroom to the dressing room”.
Nigerian federation president Amaju Pinnick, who initially considered standing himself, also backed him as, reportedly, did Sierra Leone’s federation chief Isha Johansen.
Like Jordaan, Pinnick and Johansen are both on CAF’s executive committee and the speed with which Motsepe was catapulted into pole position led to persistent questions over alleged deal-making, given that Motsepe had no regional or even national experience in football administration, unlike some of the other contenders.
In the end, however, as part of a collective plan brokered a week before the election, Senghor and Yahya had to be content with agreeing to become CAF vice-presidents, with Anouma a special advisor.
Motsepe will be the first South African to lead CAF, following in the footsteps of two Egyptians, a Sudanese, an Ethiopian, a Cameroonian and a Malagasy.
Reported to be the ninth richest man in Africa, he will automatically become a vice-president of FIFA as well as a member of the decision-making FIFA council, a clean break from the disastrous tenure of Ahmad Ahmad who, despite having his five-year FIFA ban cut to two years by the Court of Arbitration for Sport, failed in his last-ditch attempt to go for a second term.
Whilst Ahmad’s successor may not cut the traditional figure of a leading football administrator, Motsepe, brother in law of South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, certainly has a strong international profile.
He has promised to use his business acumen to improve CAF’s financial standing but has said very little so far about either his ascent to the top job or how he plans to negotiate his way through a minefield of personal conflicts and internecine disagreements.
That should come tomorrow at or after his election. His supporters say he is just what CAF needs to promote the Continent, a skilled and statesmanlike figure who will be a breath of fresh air.
His chief task will be to keep that air clean and stop it becoming as foul-smelling as under past CAF regimes.
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