FALSE 10: Do they really respect African football?

When people mention words ‘Africa‘ and ‘football‘ together, it‘s always in nice contest. FIFA president Gianni Infantino is among those. “Africa can come together to celebrate our beautiful game” he said at the 2023 AFCON final. "The future of African football is bright" were his words in 2022. But when we go from words to the real world, it‘s not always like that. FIFA is consisted of many countries and to control the majority will always get you elected, but in the end, the most power and wealth lies in Europe and when the European clubs come calling, ‘beautiful Africa‘ suddenly has to suffer.

On December 3rd, just 18 days before the start of the Africa‘s most popular and most important tournament, AFCON, FIFA decided to side with the clubs and allowed them one addition week to release their players for the tournament. And they even got CAF approval for it! The decision came after "fruitful consultations led by FIFA with key stakeholders and thanks to the spirit of solidarity demonstrated by CAF to reduce the impact on various parties" FIFA said in a statement, referring to the tournament organizers, the Confederation of African Football.

"It was also decided to encourage member associations participating in the 2025 AFCON and clubs releasing players... to engage in good faith bilateral discussions in order to find appropriate individual solutions" FIFA added.

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The consequences will not only affect the countries, but the tournament as well. The national coaches always have little time to prepare for games anyway and now they will have even less. Players will come from different leagues, with different fitness levels and to blend them in and work on tactics as well with only six or seven days available will certainly lower the quality of performances. And then there is the question of funds.

“It jeopardizes our training camps. Plane tickets have been booked, training locations, hotels, pitches, buses—everything is in place. We've even arranged visas for some countries so they can train in Europe. We're jeopardizing the entire organization, and if the players are released on the 14th, they wouldn't arrive until the 15th. We have to be in Morocco on the 18th to play on the 22nd. So, we can no longer call it a training camp“ said furious Angola coach Patrice Beaumelle.

African coaches fuming after new FIFA decision over AFCON

And he is not the only one. African football veteran and 1988 AFCON winner with Cameroon Claude Le Roy called this decision a ‘disgrace‘.

"This decision is a disgrace. Once again, FIFA President Gianni Infantino pretends to be a friend of Africa while having absolutely no respect for the continent. We constantly hear grand speeches about the need to help the Global South, but at the very moments when we could be helping it, we attack it, we sabotage it, we ridicule it" he said to AFP.

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Even the coaches who will benefit from this decision are not supporting this decision. Former Senegal international Habib Beye is coaching Rennes who are fighting for Champions League football and has three players who will depart to Morocco seven days later, but still believes this is harming AFCON.

"I'm not surprised by what's happening. This interference… Impacting this competition at the last minute while thinking it's minor, it's happened before. I've experienced this kind of thing. It seems like you can move this AFCON whenever you want, but that doesn't happen with other international competitions. Everyone knows that the AFCON was moved there for the Club World Cup. If we had been asked to release our players on December 8th, we would have done it" said Beye.

On the other hand, four-time AFCON participant as a member of Atlas Lions Medhi Benatia is now Olympique Marseille sporting director. He is proud that he has AFCON participants in his squad and would like his home country of Morocco to win the tournament but admits that his biggest interest now is his football club not the Africa‘s biggest tournament. The fact that the decision to postpone player‘s arrivals by another week came so late is also convenient – it doesn‘t give too much room to any country to officially act or organize some sort of protest, yet alone boycott. It‘s also worth nothing that the favorites have not complained much, as they have strong squads already, but the outsiders who have a few, but important players who are in Europe will surely suffer. This ‘lesson‘ from FIFA to African football should be taken seriously and should have some consequences come next AFCON. Maybe the solution to play every four instead of two years (which was promoted by Infantino himself) will be greeted now, or maybe the option to play June, rather in December/January will get more fans. Whatever happens in the end it will be better than to disrespect African football with decisions like this.