LETTER FROM SACLEPEA AFRICA MUST STOP BEING FIFA’S GUARANTEED VOTE BANK

By Musa Hassan Bility  – (In Philly)

An Open Message to CAF President Patrice Motsepe and the Presidents of Africa’s 54 Member Associations

President Motsepe, members of the CAF Executive Committee, and presidents of Africa’s football associations, I have a message for you.

For too long, whenever a FIFA presidential election approaches, Africa’s votes are bundled together, counted in advance and delivered as one package.

Under one FIFA president after another, Africa has been treated as a guaranteed vote bank. In return, we receive grants, ceremonial praise and token projects. These interventions may provide temporary assistance, but they have not produced the structural transformation African football desperately needs.

FIFA controls billions of dollars in assets, yet African football is still bleeding. Our clubs are struggling. Our leagues remain commercially weak. Our infrastructure is poor, and our young players still believe they must leave Africa before their talent can be recognized.

This must change.

The decision by CAF to unanimously endorse Gianni Infantino for another term, long before any serious debate about the future of FIFA, immediately devalued every Member Association president in Africa.

You were elected to represent your countries. Your vote belongs to your association. It does not belong to the CAF President, the CAF Executive Committee or the FIFA President.

If all 54 votes can be pledged before candidates present their programs and before Africa identifies its priorities, what is the value of your individual offices?

That is not African unity. That is the surrender of African responsibility.

Gianni Infantino came from UEFA and served as its General Secretary. Europe knows him better than any other continent. Yet when UEFA believed he had crossed the line, it stood up to him. Asia and Concacaf have also raised serious objections.

Africa must now join hands with Europe in its fight to hold Gianni Infantino accountable and keep his power in check. We must applaud UEFA and its member associations for their courage.

Infantino is one of their own. Yet they have demonstrated that they care more about the integrity and future of FIFA than protecting the power of one man. They have refused to allow regional loyalty to become more important than their responsibility to world football.

We Africans cannot be more European than the Europeans themselves. If Europe can stand up to one of its own, Africa has no justification for remaining silent or blindly defending him.

This is not a fight against Europe. It is a fight for football, and Africa must stand on the right side.

President Motsepe, you have defended your support for Infantino in the language of friendship and loyalty. But football governance is not a private friendship. It is a public trust.

Nobody is asking you to stab a friend in the back. We are asking you not to turn your back on Africa.

I do not speak as an outsider.

I initially supported Prince Ali in the 2016 FIFA presidential election. Later, when Infantino needed African support, I was among those who helped him. I travelled across Africa in search of change and participated in the movement that ended the old order at CAF in 2017.

But when I believed FIFA had crossed the line and was attempting to take control of CAF, I stood against it. I demanded accountability. I called for an audit. I opposed the takeover of African football, and I accepted the consequences.

I therefore accept my own share of responsibility. I believed we were supporting change. Instead, we helped create another system in which too much power was concentrated in the hands of one individual.

I will not remain silent while Africa makes the same mistake again.

Thirty years ago, African music struggled for international recognition. Today, African music is driving global culture. African cinema has experienced a similar transformation.

Yet football, which is more popular across Africa than music and cinema, has failed to experience the same commercial revolution.

Africa produces some of the greatest football talent in the world. We export that talent, watch it become valuable elsewhere, and then pay through television subscriptions to see our own players perform.

We are producing the raw material for the global football industry while others control the finished product.

That must end.

This crisis is bigger than Gianni Infantino. His time will eventually pass. But if the system remains unchanged, another individual will inherit the same excessive powers and the same culture will continue.

FIFA’s recent history has been marked by scandals, forced departures and repeated crises of confidence. The lesson is clear: the problem is not only the person occupying the office. The office itself has been given too much power.

Changing the individual without changing the system is not enough.

MY PROPOSAL: A ROTATIONAL FIFA PRESIDENCY

The position of elected FIFA President should be abolished and replaced by a rotational presidency among FIFA’s six continental confederations.

Under this system, the president of each confederation would, in an agreed order, serve as FIFA President for two years. At the end of that period, the presidency would automatically rotate to the president of the next confederation.

This would end the permanent struggle to capture FIFA’s presidency. There would be no worldwide presidential campaign, no individual seeking to remain in power, and no incentive to use development funds, appointments or political influence to secure votes.

The rotational FIFA President would represent FIFA, preside over its meetings and protect its statutes, but would possess no independent executive authority.

All executive decisions would be strictly reserved for the FIFA Council, pending approval by the FIFA Congress. No president could unilaterally control FIFA’s finances, commercial rights, appointments, development funds, competitions or technical affairs.

FIFA’s permanent professional administration would consist of qualified financial, commercial, legal, administrative and technical experts. Its responsibility would be to execute decisions approved through the FIFA Council and FIFA Congress without political interference from the presidency.

Football must be operated by qualified professionals, not controlled by one powerful political figure.

Independent audit, ethics and compliance institutions must also be strengthened so that they can investigate everyone, including the FIFA President, without interference.

This rotational system would separate the presidency from executive control, allow every continent to lead FIFA and ensure that no individual can ever again dominate international football in the manner we have repeatedly witnessed.

CAF must withdraw its unconditional endorsement of Gianni Infantino and place this proposal for structural reform before the football world.

Until FIFA is reformed, no African vote should be pledged in advance. Every African association must independently consider the issues, consult its stakeholders and decide what is best for football in its country and across the continent.

Africa must negotiate from a clear continental agenda, not from personal relationships.

That agenda must include the commercialization of African football. We need stronger domestic leagues, viable regional competitions, better stadiums, professional club management, modern broadcasting, digital distribution, youth academies, women’s football and commercially powerful African competitions that ordinary Africans can follow and support.

We must stop waiting only for FIFA projects. Africa must become an owner, producer and commercial beneficiary of global football.

President Motsepe, I do not believe the record of the current CAF leadership justifies another term. You should announce that your present mandate will be your last.

Use the remainder of your presidency to restore CAF’s independence, reform its institutions, commercialize African football and lead the campaign for a rotational FIFA presidency.

The manner in which your presidency emerged created the impression that CAF’s leadership had been arranged to keep Africa under FIFA’s control. You now have an opportunity to prove otherwise and establish a different legacy.

History does not only remember how a leader arrived. It also remembers what that leader did when confronted by a defining moment.

This is your defining moment.

To every African football association president, I say this: look beyond the grants, invitations, photographs and promises.

Think about the children still playing barefoot on the streets of Africa. Think about the clubs that cannot survive. Think about the players who believe their only path to success is to leave their continent.

Africa has stood on the wrong side of football history too many times. We must not do it again.

Withdraw the blank cheque.

Stand up for your associations.

Stand up for African football.

Stand up for Africa.

Let history remember you not as the generation that surrendered Africa’s voice, but as the generation that finally reclaimed it.