South Africa’s 2010 head, Danny Jordaan, has called for dramatic changes to the way the game is run, if the continent hopes to host its first World Cup successfully.
Jordaan was unequivocal about what African teams need to do to perform better in South Africa in 2010: ”Improvements are needed in all areas.”
He said that while the continent’s football officials had not had the time to reflect collectively, football leaders should act immediately if they want to reverse the trend of failure by Africa’s teams.
These teams are always ”carrying a lot of hope before the tournament and returning with unfulfilled promises”.
The post-mortem on Germany 2006 will undoubtedly focus on the turnaround strategy because the problems encountered have become endemic in the administration of football on the continent.
Fortunately we have milestones to help us gauge our preparedness between now and 2010. First there is the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing, and then there is the Confederations Cup, to be played in South Africa the following year.
It may take a while before the Confederation of African Football (CAF) calls an executive meeting to assess the damage caused by the failure of its teams.
As pundits evaluate Africa’s dismal showing at the finals, discussions will be dominated by the perennial topics of poor administration and mismanagement of resources by African football leaders.
Without rehashing the well-documented problems affecting the game, there is the unavoidable conclusion that football on the continent is generally run the same way as many states have been run since independence from colonialism.
African governments cannot hold football administrators accountable because most African states do not have constitutions that demand that sort of moral commitment from their politicians.
African football is plagued by presidents and office bearers who enjoy unlimited time in office. Elections are often rigged, corruption is a pastime and, even when their activities are exposed, football leaders are seldom removed from office.
In South Africa the national association has, over the years, failed to account for millions of rands earmarked for development — yet its members remain in office.
It is too early to tell what steps football leaders will take to end the downslide, following a period of promise in the 1990s when Cameroon reached the quarterfinals and Nigeria reached the knockout stages. The period of hope ended in 2002 when Senegal became the second African team to reach the final eight in the World Cup. Since then standards have been slipping.
It is almost a foregone conclusion that the world governing body, Fifa, will not increase the continent’s representation in the 2010 showpiece, despite a clamour for more places.
This is obviously a blow, given that more representation means a greater chance of winning the cup. Fifa executives ruled two years ago that demand for places would be based on results. The message from Fifa is clear: Africa will not get more places until it performs better on the field and this can only be achieved by pursuing policies that improve the governance and development of the game.
Now is the time for grassroots constituencies, regions, communities, sponsors and all other stakeholders to demand accountability from football leaders in Africa.
If Africa hopes to achieve anything in 2010, far-reaching changes in the running of the game need to be initiated. A starting point would be to rewrite the constitutions of governing bodies and so end the disease of unlimited periods in office — such as that of the CAF president, Issa Hayatou, who has been in power for more than 18 years.
Africa remains the only continent where teams have financial squabbles before or during major tournaments — this despite the fact that Fifa gives participating associations more than $1-million each for preparations.
The Togo association is facing a huge fine from Fifa after its team’s threats not to honour the match against Switzerland until the association agreed to players’ demands for increased match appearance fees. They eventually played, but the damage had been done and the team lost all its group stages matches. In 2002, Cameroon had the same problems and also failed to qualify for the knockout stages.
As African politicians battle to enforce democracy in the hope that it will introduce a culture of accountability, football also needs to introduce measures to monitor the development and growth of the game on the continent.