By Bernard Asubonteng, Atlanta, GA.

Watching carefully, listening attentively, and observing critically at some of the ways our self-proclaimed leaders do things in that beautiful place called Africa, more often I get completely lost in the wilderness of hypnosis and lack of self-expression. It’s mind-boggling watching and seeing many of the African leaders in the positions of trust executing the same old policies over and over again and then thinking that somehow they will achieve different results. For example, let’s take the timing or the organization of the biennial African Nations’ Cup featuring the national teams. To say the least, the bi-annual African soccer contest has become outmoded, suffice it to say that holding the event every two years has not been very helpful to the sound development of the continent’s soccer.

It’s disheartening trying to figure out what it’s that make a great continent such as Africa, with all her vastly rich resources and human talents, run by empty-headed and visionless egomaniacs calling themselves leaders and policy-makers. Sometimes one wonders if this sorry state of affairs is rooted in stupidity, selfishness, lack of flexibility, incompetence or African nationalism, or a mixture of all of them. Like almost all the respective Football Associations (FA) in Africa, the Egypt-based Confederation of African Football (CAF) has lost touch with modernity and reality to the point that its governing policies reflect her backwardness and lack of foresight. Time is quickly running around these Africa soccer officials, but they don’t want to move with the time.

One of the stunning realities the CAF policy-makers are refusing to face is their seemingly inability to tell the difference between the era in late 1950s when the Nations’ Cup contest was first held in Sudan and how soccer has undergone tremendous change as of now. During the 1950s many of us can easily count African players accepted to play in the major European football teams as professionals. But now there’s hardly any big-time soccer team in Europe w ithout a player from Africa. This is an undeniable fact. Time has, indeed, changed!

Notwithstanding the FIFA rules regarding the “supremacy” of a national team over an individual football club, one is of the view that the CAF will see the light of the day by readjusting to the changing times to give many of our African professional players some kind of flexibility vis-à-vis playing for their national teams, but the contrary holds sway. This is far from suggesting that players who rode on the backs of their national teams to stardom should not play for their respective nations if they’re called for national assignment.

The questions we’re asking are: what is CAF trying to accomplish by organizing almost back-to-back Africa Cup of Nations soccer event every other year? Can’t the soccer fiesta be held every three years instead of its current state that borders on redundancy? We also want to know if CAF has a “functioning” policy review bloc that analyzes and quality-checks the governing body’s policies? What sense does it make to stage a major soccer event (Africa Cup of Nations) in the same year or some few months preceding the “mother of all soccer,” the FIFA World Cup? By organizing the Nations’ Cup every two years, does the African soccer body ever realize that not only are they putting African players in Europe in an unnecessary dilemma, but also most of the host nations, although they accept the offer to host the games, they struggle within their meager financial resources to meet the CAF’s deadlines? Would it not be a smart move to give the host nation more than two years to prepare for such an important event in Africa?

It’s an open secret that whichever planet the CAF’s life-long president Issa Hayatou and his men are living on, they should have realized by now that hosting the Africa Cup of Nations, especially in the World Cup year has not really been exciting or productive. Think about this fact: most of the African players in Europe form the core of their respective national teams. These players need their nations’ moral and spiritual support as much as their countries need their services. However, they’ve to make a living to support their families just like everyone else. I’m not holding brief for them, because many of us know that some of these so-called foreign-based African stars are ungrateful, arrogant, and indiscipline. We also know that many of these players are unassuming and love to serve their various countries without hesitation.

But in so many ways, the African Confederation’s status quo keeps muddying the already muddy waters. So, rather than almost always reminding the foreign-based players of how unpatriotic they are whenever they failed to show up for national assignment, how about the CAF, including its corrupt affiliated FA appendages come up with a synchronized soccer calendar? That way the Europe-based African players will have no any solid alibi, because as the European Nations’ Cup is taking place, the African version will also be in progress. No matter how the CAF plans her soccer timetable, Africa Cup of Nations should not be held the same year the World Cup is to take place. If I’m not mistaken, neither the European Cup of Nations nor the South American version is hosted the same year as the FIFA World Cup. And there is a common sense reason for that. Every nation and her players want to be part of the soccer’s ultimate event—the World Cup. No smart soccer body wants to waste her human and material resources while the World Cup is just around the corner. It’s a commonplace knowledge that during the year that coincides with the World Cup event most of the African nations that have qualified to participate in the World Cup usually do not give off their best performance in the Nations’ Cup competition. Do you blame them? I don’t! Which player wants to play too hard, knowing that his team has qualified for the World Cup and risk getting injured in some hastily organized games and thus miss playing in the most prestigious football extravaganza in one’s lifetime?

Let’s take a look at the Europeans. They have better sports infrastructures, efficient transportation systems, modern communication networks, the money, and more elaborate organization, but do not even stage the Nations’ Cup bi-annually, so why can’t Africa soccer officials learn some practical lessons from them? The European countries should be the ones having back-to-back Nations’ Cup because all their top players are right there in Europe. The issue is not that everything the Europeans do is the best…No way! All that we are saying is that the Europeans understand what constitutes modern soccer. They know that soccer in this era is based on thoughtful planning and organization. This probably explains why although Africa has all the soccer talents and the natural skills, yet owing to poor planning and haphazard organization, the continent still lags behind her sister continent in the north regarding soccer development.

Of course our discussion at this point would not be complete if we fail to mention the real culprits calling the shots at the CAF. Clearly there are many of the dramatis personae at the CAF Secretariat who are issuing the all these ultra Africa-centric and outmoded soccer edits; however, two of them have their names written in stone. Number one is the Cameroonian-born president of CAF, Issa Hayatou; and, the other is the Egyptian-born Secretary General of CAF, Mustapha Fahmy. The former has been the head of the CAF since 1988 and the latter has occupied the Secretary General position from 1982 to this day! To me what this presupposes is that not only are these leaders view modern football through obsolete binoculars, but also they’ve become visionless and corrupt to the core. They have wielded power at the expense of Africa football for far too long; in the process, they’ve surrounded themselves with their cronies who shout “hosanna, hosanna” at every move their masters make at the CAF headquarters. Remember? Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

What new and creative ideas do people such as Mr. Hayatou and Mr. Fahmy have for the organization they’ve been leading for the past two decades? Soccer organization keeps changing almost every year and if you look closely at CAF’s actions, it’s hard to see any big changes, especially at the organization the Nation’s Cup—the biggest soccer contest of all CAF’s events. Part of it has something to do with staying in one position for too long, making you too conservative and start thinking you have all the right ideas under the sun thereby rendering you unresponsive to new ideas.

The other part is related to the fact that the CAF leadership per se does not have someone who has played and fully understood the vagaries of big-time modern soccer. Once again look at the Europeans: they’ve come to realize that the trajectories of modern soccer and its management call for someone who has been in the actual trenches of action football before. The Europeans chose Michel Platini because they needed someone who has played contemporary soccer on local, national, international, and World Cup level to lead them into the 21st century. They needed someone who has been on the soccer field with teams playing high-profile matches attacking and defending together, either win or lose. The French-born President of the European soccer body, Platini truly knows the feelings and the needs of his fellow footballers. The way the European football is so well organized tells you those calling shots are on top of their game. Michel Platini is both a former soccer star extraordinaire and an international football legend. Unlike Issa Hayatou and his minions, Michel Platini’s leadership reflects the aspirations and the expectations of European footballers.

No question about this: Africa is richly endowed with soccer talents. However, for Africa soccer to catch up or get a little closer to her European counterpart, the current organizational structure of CAF needs to be reconfigured, now! CAF needs a term limit vis-à-vis its presidency. The Africa soccer body is crying for people with vision, creativity, and sensitivity. Africa football is going modern with lightning speed. This calls for people such as George Weah, Abedi Pele, Roger Milla and what have you, who have played modern soccer on world-class level to be in the saddles of the CAF. Tell me, when and what modern team did Issa Hayatou and Fahmy play for? They need to give way for fresh and new ideas. Their ideas are out-of-date, staled, and unproductive. The time is long overdue for them to go; else the organization of Africa Cup of Nations will still lack creativity and innovation.

Bernard.Asubonteng@yahoo.com