Publications
Partners
When Ahmad Ahmad was voted in as the new president of the Confederation of African Football (CAF) in March 2017, he did not hesitate to make his presence felt.
The Malagasy football administrator won the hearts of continental players and fans alike when he changed the African club competitions’ calendar to align with the Fifa international calendar.
This was a stroke of genius when one considers that, for the longest time, African players had to deal with the club versus country debacle, resulting in some of them retiring prematurely from international football.
This was because players feared losing their lucrative club contracts, especially those plying their trade abroad. Now CAF seems to be undoing that achievement.
The tight schedules between fixtures in the ongoing 2021 Afcon qualifiers is a case in point.
South Africa had a standoff with CAF over the initial dates that would have seen Bafana Bafana play two of their back-to-back qualifiers against Ghana and Sudan within three days. Bafana got into camp on Sunday and were on the road the following day, after just one training session.
They had two more sessions in Ghana – three in total before kick off. That’s ridiculous.
Although Safa fought for justice and got an extra day, a turnaround of four days is still not healthy.
The injury suffered by Bafana midfielder Bongani Zungu just 26 minutes into South Africa’s game against Ghana on Thursday won’t be received well by the player’s club, Amiens SC in France. Zungu was on the pitch for just a few minutes after he and his fellow overseas-based national team-mates joined Bafana in Accra two days before.
Those who have consistently travelled around Africa are well aware of the challenges teams face when it comes to shuttling between African countries.
Unlike in Europe, the continent doesn’t have an efficient transport system that has direct flights or speed trains to get the commuters to their destinations in no time.
Frequent delays and long hours in transit are the order of the day.
Now spare a thought for the national teams that, with tons of equipment to ship, are expected to travel for long hours to honour fixtures and are then expected to be back on the pitch for a second game within a day or two.
In the midst of all this, there is also the factor of time differences. There is a high risk of teams missing matches as a result.
By any measure, this is not fair on the players, especially those who travel all the way from Europe for games. Nigeria coach Gernot Rohr is among those who have expressed their displeasure over the tight qualifying schedule.
The Super Eagles opened their group campaign against Benin on Wednesday before travelling all the way south to Lesotho in just four days.
Rohr raised a valid point that overseas-based players have no time to adapt to the African conditions.
“After the game on Thursday [against Benin, which they won 2-1 in Uyo], we travel to Lesotho on Friday to play on an artificial surface on Sunday [today].
“This is not ideal and proper for any team. We’ve spoken to CAF about this, but nothing has been done,” the German tactician told the media during the team’s camp this week.
But this sounds all too familiar, especially this part: “We’ve spoken to CAF about this, but nothing has been done.”
This leads to another related topic – the partial TV blackout of the qualifiers across sub-Saharan Africa in the wake of CAF’s decision to unilaterally terminate its 12-year $1 billion (R14.80 billion) contract with French-based agency Lagardère Sports.
Fans were left with live streaming as the only option to watch the live action as pay-TV rights holder SuperSport made it clear that it would not broadcast any CAF matches without a contract in place.
One can only feel sorry for SuperSport subscribers, who are the biggest losers in all the fracas.
It is a fact that data costs in South Africa are exorbitant compared with other African countries. It was not surprising that some locals’ data was depleted midway into the Bafana versus Black Stars game on Thursday.
At least the country will take some solace from the fact that the SABC screened South Africa’s next qualifier against Sudan at Orlando Stadium live. Bafana Bafana got their 2021 Africa Cup of Nations qualifying campaign back on track following their 1-0 win.
But Ahmad must get his house in order, quickly. While he is at it, he must remember that the wellbeing of players is paramount, otherwise some of them will be forced to turn their backs on their national teams.
We can’t be singing the same tune all the time. As the old saying goes: the more things change, the more they stay the same.
 |
| ||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||
