It cannot and will never be right that Caf starves fans
● It is only in Africa that football fans are starved of watching their own teams contesting the Holy Grail of their interclub competition.
To get a glimpse of games as their teams contest interclub football, followers have to resort to pirate means. It is not uncommon to find us watching the internet on sites where soccer content competes with raunchy sexual subject matter.
One press on the wrong link and you find your screen awash with images of women who offer a promise of doing weird and wonderful things to you and for you at a cost, of course.
And mind you, data does not come cheap. Not in this country where a minister of communications would break lockdown regulations to have lunch with her bestie and take her hubby shopping in Geneva rather than grapple with the real issues of her portfolio.
Football fans from Morogoro to Antananarivo suffer famine of their favourite sport on their television sets because they have been deprived a platform to feast on fare from their own continent.
The source of their deprivation? The organisation that governs the game in Africa, the Confederation of African Football (Caf).
It cannot and will never be correct that supporters in Accra, Bamako, Nairobi, Luanda, Harare and Johannesburg can be spoilt for choice and watch the Uefa Champions League at a push of a button while they have no access to the equivalent version of that competition on their own continent.
It is absolutely ludicrous that the football controlling body in Africa has not been able to enter into a broadcast deal that would enable the people of its continent to watch their own teams.
If Motsepe can lend his business acumen to change that frees Caf, let him rise to office
Since 2019. Scandalous stuff.
Some of those leaders who are part of that problem are contesting to lead Caf in the March 12 election.
Some of the people who work for this organisation are so eager to please their bosses who can behave like a bunch of warlords who seek unquestioned servitude.
It is interesting the lengths the minions are prepared to go to to appease the big man.
Once, an article I wrote in criticism of Issa Hayatou during his 29-year iron fist reign at Caf landed me in trouble. Which reminds me of an ordeal one faced to cover the 2010 Afcon in Angola.
An overzealous former Caf director of communications Suleiman Habuba was hellbent on throwing his weight around. He sent me from pillar to post.
He refused to accede to my request for accreditation even though the application was approved. Instead he wanted to give me a ticket to cover the match sitting in the open stands with the supporters. That wasn’t a problem. I’m not precious. My main impediment was that I needed connectivity to work.
It was going to be nigh impossible from row 50 in a packed-to-the-rafters
Estadio 11 de Novembro on the day of the opening match between hosts Angola and Mali.
In not so uncertain terms, I politely told the media officer to go bungee jumping without a rope. Thankfully, Raymond Hack, who had been a victim of venom from my pen for his shenanigans at Safa, spoke to the then Caf CEO Hicham El Amrani.
Two days later and after a 20-minute lecture in his office, Amrani issued me with the accreditation.
I am highlighting this point to illustrate how rotten the administration has been.
This by an organisation that allowed Hayatou's son to enter into lucrative deals with broadcasters. It is this kind of nonsense that hopefully will come to a stop should Patrice Motsepe succeed in his bid to become the Caf president. The commercial value of Caf has not been fully exploited. If Motsepe is able to lend his business acumen to bring about a change that can free Caf from its own self-serving claws, let him rise to office.