The African Football Confederation (CAF) hosted for the first time a seminar on football competitions and infrastructure development in Africa. The president of the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA), Gianni Infantino, was a guest speaker at the seminar. He debated and disputed suggestions for the future of African football competition and infrastructure.
President Infantino first suggested that Africa should change the frequency of the African Football Cup of Nations, from the current two years to four years in frequency. Second, he proposed the creation of a pan-African league of twenty to twenty-four teams. Third, he advised upgrading African football infrastructure by investing one billion dollars to build world-class stadiums in all African nations. Fourth, he suggested that there be twenty selected, professional African referees.
As presented by Infantino, the reforms are a response to African football’s current challenges. His recommendations show his critical assessment of African football’s limitations and structural deficits.
Challenging the rationale that the African Cup of Nations (AFCON) every two years intends to improve the supply of quality football stadiums across the continent, Infantino asserted, “We have been playing CAN [the Africa Cup of Nations] every two years for decades. Are we seeing a development of infrastructure and income in African football? CAN now generates twenty times less than the Euro. I’ve traveled to forty-one countries, and what I saw wasn’t really an explosion of modern stadiums.”
Discussing his criticisms about football infrastructures, Infantino revealed, “When we watch African competition matches on television, there are people everywhere, cars inside the stadium, spectators seated, but we do not understand what is happening… The match, which was scheduled to start at 8 p.m., begins at 8:10 p.m. Or it does not start, because it has been postponed for the next few days, but no one is aware of it. These are situations that obviously affect the image of African football.”
The facts as he presented them are pertinent and representative of a certain reality of African football, though approximate and without context. For many reasons not related to the competition itself, AFCON has not delivered its promise to improve football infrastructure across the continent. To the contrary, various competitions often exhibit uneven pitches, with poorly staged competitions and games. Although Infantino is generalizing about the problem, his observations are undeniably accurate. I had the chance to attend a match, Senegal–Soudan, qualifier for the AFCON in 2018. The state of the turf and the lighting did not match the status of Senegal as a top team. Football infrastructure in Sub-Saharan Africa is a long-lasting challenge that hasn’t been alleviated by the artificial turfs now common in many countries’ stadiums and places hosting the AFCON.
African nations that hosted the AFCON did invest in new stadiums. In many cases, most of the new stadiums will become “white elephants,” meaning expensive buildings that will deteriorate because of maintenance cost and low use. Regardless of the frequency of the AFCON, a facility’s low use will remain a difficulty for countries with a very limited size of elite football capacity. Having more stadiums, to accommodate twenty-four teams’ competitions, will only exacerbate the dilemma of stadium maintenance. In fact, there are multiple layers of issues to grasp in order to understand the problems of post-hosting the AFCON white elephants.
Hosting an AFCON is a national and political decision that is above the governing bodies of football. The new stadium locations often do not respond any football rationale. Geographically equitable repartition of infrastructures and personal political agendas may cause the building of stadiums to be in regions where organized football is limited. These regions may be incapable year-round of fully using a sizable stadium. Frequently political agendas and considerations supersede football development logic to determine were stadiums will be built. The AFCON hosting has yet to integrate legacy plans in their bid process. In contrast, the International Olympic Committee and FIFA have legacy programs in their bid requirement to limit stadiums being built but then not put to maximum use.
The white elephant syndrome is a complex reality. Events such as the FIFA World Cup and the Olympics—despite having a four years’ frequency—are still battling with this problem. It is inevitable that the host country develops new, state-of-the-art facilities, with a seating capacity to accommodate the large attendance at mega or major events. The host country is then challenged to build up sport development that can partially or fully use the newly built facilities. Low sport development levels do not provide the financial and technological resources to maintain and sustain a big new stadium. To be viable, such post-host stadiums would need a flourishing sports industry in place, meaning revenues from local consumers, local and global television rights, merchandising, ticketing, and sponsorships. This is the sports industry needed to generate the financial cycle allowing sports to sustain its human resources and facilities. Without a sports industry, the government is the main financial provider to maintain the facilities. But a government with already stretched finances and competing priorities will not continue to invest in the new facilities, once the competition is over. This is a common scenario in African countries.
Raising one billion dollars to build a new facility for African football will definitively bring to all these countries a new football stadium, especially for those countries that have not hosted any major football tournament in recent years. The national team, the local elite league, and international competitions will present a better face to the world when shown on television. Will achieving this goal be enough to mitigate the lack of maintenance? Will the need to present a better face somehow overcome the human capacity gap in facility management? Will somehow the initial presentation make up for the low budget later for facility maintenance and rehabilitation when needed? So far, all things considered, it seems that new football facilities will not address the multiple layers of handicap in African football.
A new African league with twenty to twenty-four teams may have the potential to create a new culture of excellence in the host countries and attract the necessary funds to sustain the newly build facilities. The U.S. National Basketball Association–Basketball African League (NBA–BAL) is an experiment that will be a good case for this model. With a league of twelve teams in six countries and the strong support of the successful U.S. basketball league, the NBA BAL will showcase the potential of a pan-African sport league. The sustainability of such a league is appealing and has the potential to be a role model for all sport organizations in term of management and professionalism. Beyond being a role model, can these elite leagues effectively serve as development engines for sport in Africa?
Broadcasting exposure to European football clubs has given African football fans world-class football expectations. But they do not fully comprehend the prerequisites for the production of football entertainment, so the comparison to European football is often mimicked when possible, while remaining a fantasy. African clubs run by quality sport-management expertise, excellent facilities, great teams, and savvy club management can create a snowball effect that will affect the culture of football management across the various countries. In fact, having professional, well-run clubs in the pan-African league can potentially be beneficial and positive to football development (nonetheless with some limitations).
The pyramidal nature of football development suggests that we be more reserved about the Infantino’s offer to build new facilities and establish a twenty to twenty-four team pan-African league. The success of an elite system is a large network of football players, trained coaches, and competent administrators at every level of the development chain. Considering how limited African football development systems are today, building a new elite system with the pan-African league is uncertain. So far, despite the push for pro-leagues across the continent, African football in Africa is still not economically viable. That situation is despite the development of competitions such as the CAN to try to mobilize and give meaning to players competing on the continent, and the mushrooming of football academies. The pan-African league, like the Union of European Football Associations’ (UEFA) Champions league, will create a substantially unrecoverable gap between the one or two clubs and the rest of their national leagues. Moreover, the lack of a sufficient number of competent administrators and technical resources, and the fragile financial state of clubs and governing bodies, remain prevalent across Sub-Saharan Africa. A pan-African league of twenty clubs and new stadiums are not likely to fill the gap in the human capacity of African football and address the other challenges, such as governance.
African football governance remains difficult, with often conflicting agendas among factors such as the national team success, the overall development of football, and people’s personal agendas. As already mentioned, the human capacity of most national football associations remains insufficient to manage football clubs and associations. Although sports management schools are not indispensable, more education and training about understanding the reality of managing sport in Africa is critical. Education, curriculum, and training from developed countries, although valuable, are developed in a specific socioeconomic and historical context that does not apply directly to Africa. Better governance requires knowledgeable human resources at every level and quality leadership. FIFA’s desire to remove the influence or control of football by national political government is appreciated. However, the reality of the noninterference of government in football does not prevent the infiltration of football governance by domestic and personal political agendas, manipulation, and ambitions.
Governance challenges also show up in refereeing. To address refereeing challenges, Infantino’s suggestion was to professionalize the African refereeing elite. It is another recommendation that seems valuable to improve refereeing and to mitigate the corruption temptations. However, like the professionalization of football leagues, any professionalization depends on financial revenues and an overall governance. Creating a professional body of referees to address in isolation is not a sustainable remedy.
Infantino’s recommendations at the Moroccan seminar on football competitions and infrastructure development in Africa appeared at times to be patronizing and controversial, and these remarks certainly generated a lot of reaction from African football experts, former players, and the media. Infantino highlighted some realities of African football that could not be dismissed. The small capacity for the AFCON to generate substantial revenues, the state of the facilities, referees’ low standard, and the pertinence of some of the continental competitions, were legitimate observations. However, his recommendations were not grounded in any substantial data, or simple sport and African football socioeconomic reality and understanding. It resonated more as inaccurate remedies to calm some symptoms of African football without addressing the root causes.
Moreover, the overall geopolitical context of Africa and the recent development of the relationship between CAF and FIFA gave a particular resonance to Infantino’s recommendations. In fact in the context of the current geopolitical situation of African nations struggling with their global positioning and the attempt to redefine their relationships with former colonizers’ nations, the communication irritated Africans. Additionally FIFA intervention in CAF governance was already perceived as imperialistic. The powerful and rich FIFA is now perceived as trying to control and define CAF to benefit FIFA’s agenda. Justified or not, Infantino’s intervention in Morocco re-ignited the historical memories of FIFA’s Eurocentrism and paternalistic attitude toward African nations prior and right after the independence. The question now is how CAF and African football will tackle football development challenges, gaps, and missteps with the AFCON hosting and calendar, and more recently the corruption displayed. Beyond these punctual situations requiring specific, well-targeted reforms and adjustments, the question of real development of African football with its own means, philosophy, and capacity remains a complex problem that the continent must address with creativity and imagination. The socioeconomic, geopolitical context and exceptional human potential of African football is unique and cannot continue to be pulled by exogenous forces, visions, and needs.