Still dealing with the fallout from a contentious Africa Cup of Nations final, African soccer’s governing body has announced a raft of “changes and improvements” to its statutes and regulations.
The structural, legal and administrative reforms will help the Confederation of African Football regain trust in its impartiality and ensure that the scenes from the final in January are never repeated, CAF president Patrice Motsepe said after a meeting of its executive committee in Cairo on Sunday.
“I can stand here and say we’ve got the best referees, they are independent, they’re impartial. But if the ordinary football spectators on the continent and elsewhere think they are not so impartial, it’s not good for African football,” Motsepe said.
The outcome of the final is still in dispute after CAF stripped Senegal of the title two months after the match and awarded it to host nation Morocco. Senegal has appealed to the Swiss-based Court of Arbitration for Sport and both countries claim to be African champion pending the outcome. The Senegal team paraded the trophy in Paris on Saturday.
“We have to move away also from the perception that somehow our problems in Africa and our weaknesses in Africa are greater, bigger, more embarrassing, more extreme than the problems that happen in other parts of the world,” Motsepe said.
The South African businessman said CAF was working with FIFA to provide training for referees and VAR operators, and that it was imperative to pay them well to ensure integrity.
General secretary steps down
Earlier, Véron Mosengo-Omba announced he was stepping down after five years as CAF general secretary “to devote myself to more personal projects.”
The Swiss-Congolese official is a university friend of FIFA president Gianni Infantino and followed him from UEFA to FIFA in 2016. Mosengo-Omba left FIFA to take over as CAF general secretary in 2021.
CAF announced in January 2025 that the Swiss Public Prosecutor’s Office had decided to stop investigations against Mosengo-Omba “as they found no facts or legal basis to initiate legal proceedings” after he faced allegations of financial wrongdoing.
“Now that I have been able to dispel the suspicions that some people have gone to great lengths to cast on me, I can retire with peace of mind and without constraint, leaving the CAF more prosperous than ever,” Mosengo-Omba said Sunday.
Mosengo-Omba had been a contentious figure at CAF, with British newspaper The Guardian reporting claims of a “toxic culture of fear” for employees even after he was cleared of alleged governance breaches by an internal probe. The 66-year-old also worked past the body’s mandatory retirement age of 63, but Motsepe denied any impropriety, saying “we followed what the proper issue was in relation to the agreement we had with him.”
Samson Adamu from the Nigerian Football Federation was taking over as acting general secretary and sat to Motsepe’s left during their press conference.
“The vice presidents will lead the process and will report to me on the identification of a permanent general secretary,” Motsepe said. “And I’ve told Samson, whether he likes it or not, I’m going to put pressure on him also to apply for the position to be permanent.”
Morocco hosting WAFCON
Motsepe confirmed that the Women’s Africa Cup of Nations will go ahead in Morocco as initially planned. The tournament had been scheduled to take place in the kingdom from March 17 to April 3 but was pushed back at short notice to July 25-Aug. 16.
“There were circumstances that we had not foreseen,” Motsepe said after being pressed for the reasons for the postponement. On Feb 13. he had said it would not be postponed.
Preparations for 2027 Africa Cup, 28 teams
Motsepe said he will visit Kenya in May to see how preparations are going for the men’s 2027 Africa Cup, which Kenya is due to co-host with Tanzania and Uganda. He dismissed suggestions the “Pamoja” tournament could be moved to another country.
Motsepe also announced the expansion of the Africa Cup to include 28 teams, up from 24 at the 2025 edition.
Motsepe already announced in December that the Africa Cup will be held every four years from 2028.
___
AP soccer: https://apnews.com/hub/soccer
Keep Reading
The Latest
Featured
