Enough of Hayatou!

… and why Danny Jordaan would make a better option

Tendai Makaripe and Lazarus Sauti

African soccer has been ravaged by a cancer so severe that it threatens the fabric of the continent’s most popular sport.

 If left unchecked, this disease will ensure Africa will never become a global football powerhouse in the foreseeable future.

 The Sixth of October City in Cairo, Egypt ‑ where the Confederation of African Football (CAF) headquarters are situated – is home to the disease.

 And the CAF president, Issa Hayatou, has been on the watch while the disease spreads.

 The name of the cancer is maladministration.

 But before outlining how Hayatou has failed football, it is important to know who the man is.

 Hayatou was born on August 9, 1946, and has been the president of CAF since in 1987.

 In the early days, Hayatou served African football well and his long reign has come with many highlights.

 And he is not the only FIFA official to hold a top job for a long time, lest it be casually assumed that long reigns automatically make for poor leadership.

 As head of FIFA, Jules Rimet chalked up 33 years, Joao Havelange clocked 24 years, and Sepp Blatter has been going steady for more than a decade now.

 It would be grossly unfair to claim Hayatou’s reign at CAF has been all bad.

 Hayatou has successfully pushed for an increase in the number of African teams from two to five.

 Twenty-six African countries entered the qualification process for just one spot at the 1978 FIFA World Cup; but by South Africa 2010 there were six participants as the continent benefited from automatically entering the host.

 In his time, Senegal, Nigeria, Cameroon and Ghana have made great runs at FIFA World Cups.

 He has also overseen the expansion of competitions outside the Africa Cup of Nations and CAF club competitions, with more youth, women’s, futsal (a variant of football that is played on a smaller pitch, mainly indoors) and beach soccer competitions.

 All great stuff.

 But Hayatou’s weaknesses seem to overshadow his successes.

 In November 2010, Hayatou was alleged to have taken bribes in the 1990s regarding the awarding of World Cup television rights.

 Andrew Jennings, in a TV programme titled “FIFA’s Dirty Secrets” claimed to have obtained a confidential document from a company called ISL showing that Hayatou was paid US$20 000 to award that firm the television rights in 1995.

 Hayatou denied the corruption allegations and said the money was a gift for CAF.

 The International Olympic Committee disciplined him for his part in a bribery scam.

 In May 2011, The Sunday Times published claims from a whistleblower that Hayatou had ‑ along with another FIFA executive committee ‑ accepted US$1.5million in bribes from Qatar in order to secure his support for their bid for the 2022 FIFA World Cup.

 Then there is also the matter of how he handled the terrorist attack on the Togo team bus at AFCON 2010 in Angola.

 Togo pulled out, citing a legitimate security fear as two officials died in the attack by the armed men.

 Hayatou responded by charging the Togolese government with interfering in football matters, and he proceeded to sanction that country’s FA.

 Despite the huge outcry from the continent, Hayatou obstinately went on with sanctioning Togo for being victims of a terror attack.

 Togolese captain Emmanuel Adebayor and coach Hubert Velud called on Hayatou to resign.

 Senegal’s Prime Minister Souleymane Ndéné Ndiaye has also called for the same thing, following a “scandalous performance” by a referee in a Cameroon-Senegal 2012 AFCON qualifying match that ended goalless in Yaoundé.

 PM Ndiaye said, “Hayatou no longer deserves to run African football. He silently watched while Carvalho Helder gave a negative image of African refereeing.”

 He urged Senegal FA president Augustin Senghor to contest the legitimacy of Hayatou at the helm of the African football governing body.

 Niccolo Machiavelli, who wrote the 16th century political treatise “The Prince” would have been quite proud of how Hayatou managed to maintain his grip on power at the August 27, 2012 CAF Extraordinary General Assembly in The Seychelles.

 At that meeting, 44 of the 51 CAF members present agreed to alter the electoral rules to virtually guarantee Hayatou at least another four-year term.

 The new rules state that only voting members of the CAF executive committee are eligible to contest for the presidency.

 Further, every national federation president is more or less excluded from the 2013 presidential contest.

 Segun Odegbami, a retired Nigerian footballer and newspaper columnist, has said, “In the CAF family, you are either with the CAF president, or you were considered an ‘enemy’ to be excluded from all activities related to the continental body.

 “So, most members of the executive committee, national football association presidents and even members of CAF committees from various national associations have learnt to be completely loyal to Issa in order to continue to enjoy the benefits of their subservience.”

 Odegbami adds that to survive in CAF, an official must not display an iota of ambition to succeed Hayatou.

 For this reason, the administration of the game in Africa is lagging behind that in Europe; and this has a direct impact on the performances on the field of play.

 An ideal replacement would be South Africa’s Danny Jordaan.

 The sports administrator, former lecturer, politician and anti-apartheid activist led South Africa’s 2010 FIFA World Cup bid, Africa’s first successful one.

 Jordaan has served FIFA in numerous capacities, including, as a general co-ordinator for the Youth World Cup (now FIFA U-20 World Cup), 2001 FIFA Confederations Cup and the 2002 FIFA World Cup in Korea/Japan.

 He was also a match commissioner for the 2006 FIFA World Cup and a member of the 2006 FIFA World Cup Organising Committee.

 He served on the 2010 FIFA World Cup Organising Committee and 2009 FIFA Confederations Cup Organising Committee.

 In 2010, he accepted a commission from FIFA to join its inspection team to run the rule over prospective 2018 and 2022 World Cup venues in Australia, Japan, Russia, England, Spain, Portugal, Belgium, Holland, and the United States.

 A man with such vast experience at the administrative level of the game is what African soccer needs.