It has been a miserable few months for the Confederation of African Football (Caf) and its South African billionaire president Patrice Tlhopane Motsepe. On Sunday he had chance to clarify a few things, to set the record straight.<\/p>\n
The CAF executive committee met at the Giza Palace hotel in Cairo and journalists were present for the briefing that followed.<\/p>\n
The decision by Caf\u2019s appeal board to strip Senegal of the Afcon trophy<\/a> and hand it to Morocco has seen Motsepe facing the most treacherous and, without question, the most challenging period in his five-year presidency of the continent\u2019s football governing body.<\/p>\n \u201cIt is very clear to me that Motsepe will have to show leadership to find a solution to a problem which I think cannot be solved by legal means alone,\u201d an executive committee member told me on Sunday after the committee meeting.<\/p>\n \u201cI think Motsepe has to put pressure on Morocco to withdraw the [original] complaint, so this case can end and Caf, as an organisation, can avoid humiliation at Cas [the court of arbitration for sport] \u2026 but will the Moroccan Football Federation president, Fouzi Lekjaa, agree to this?\u201d<\/p>\n With the national mood in Morocco demanding that no compromise be made, as they insist that a huge injustice has been rectified, that will be an extremely hard request to meet if the one person who can guarantee it, King Mohammed VI, the country\u2019s absolute monarch, does not order it.<\/p>\n With a courtroom in Switzerland \u2013 where Cas is based \u2013 being the arbiter to determine who won the 2025 Afcon, the reputation of the tournament continues to take a reputational pasting unprecedented in its 69-year history.<\/p>\n Motsepe made it clear on Sunday that the Caf administration will not make any further statements or take any action regarding the dispute until Cas issues its ruling. It is unclear when it will deliver its decision.<\/p>\n That is in legal order. But what should not, and cannot, wait until the Cas verdict is an urgent overhaul of Caf\u2019s judicial bodies, to ensure its members are not tainted by personal and political interests that strip them of any credibility.<\/p>\n As Motsepe acknowledged, when I pointed this out to him on Sunday, it is an affront to judicial fairness and independence that Moez Nasri, the president of the Tunisian Football Federation, was a member of the five-man appeal board that took the 17 March decision to strip Senegal of the title. This fact is likely to be central, if not fundamental, to Cas\u2019s decision regarding Senegal\u2019s appeal.<\/p>\n The Caf president, Patrice Motsepe, is facing the toughest period of his reign. Photograph: Sia Kambou\/AFP\/Getty Images<\/p>\n \u201cWhen I was informed that one of the people [among the appeal board judges] was a president of one of our football associations, I responded: \u2018But come on, what is this? How did he end up there?\u2019\u201d Motsepe said in Cairo. \u201cOf course, we must draw lessons from this kind of thing\u2026 He [Moez Nasri] shouldn\u2019t have been there. We need more rigour [in how Caf\u2019s jurists are appointed].\u201d<\/p>\n Motsepe was less candid on other important issues, such as the decision to keep Veron Mosengo-Omba as general secretary beyond the 15 October 2025 date he was permitted to remain in office, having exhausted his final three-year employment extension.<\/p>\n \u201cWe acted in accordance with what was provided in that agreement [the nature and details of which Motsepe did not explain] and that\u2019s very important \u2026 At the last exco, last year, he reminded us, because I forgot. I don\u2019t remember what\u2019s in the agreement,\u201d he said, offering no further insight into what led to the extension of Mosengo-Omba\u2019s term.<\/p>\n