Patrice Motsepe, the boss of the Confederation of African Football (Caf), has announced a revamp of the organisation in an attempt to ensure that the scenes at end of January’s Cup of Nations final between Morocco and Senegal do not happen again.
The showdown on 18 January at the Stade Prince Moulay Abdellah in Rabat was held up for nearly 20 minutes after Senegal’s players walked off in protest over the referee’s decision to use the video assistant referees (Var) to award Morocco a stoppage-time penalty.
Minutes earlier Jean-Jacques Ndala Ngambo refused to deploy the same technology when ruling out a Senegal goal.
With virtually the last action of the game, Brahim Diaz botched a penalty that could have delivered the Cup of Nations trophy to his country for only the second time since the inception of the tournament in 1957.
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Senegal won 1-0 after extra-time. But Morocco was awarded the Cup of Nations title in March after a Caf appeals board said Senegal should have been punished on the spot.
A Caf disciplinary panel in January merely handed out fines to players and coaches from both sides.
“Caf has taken extensive legal advice from top African and international football lawyers and experts, to ensure that the Caf statutes and regulations adhere to and implement global football best practices, on and off the field,” Motsepe said after a meeting of Caf’s executive committee in Cairo on Sunday.
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“This is important for the respect, integrity and credibility of African referees, Var operators and the Caf disciplinary board and appeal board.”
Motsepe said Caf was working with world football’s governing body Fifa to help with the training of African referees as well as match officials and administrators.
Ethics, transparency
“Caf has made significant progress over the past five years in implementing governance, ethics, transparency and managerial best practices,” Motsepe added.
However, Motsepe failed to specify the changes and how they would prevent a repetition of the fractious scenes that were televised across the world.
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Following the decision of Caf’s appeals board, a video featuring Motsepe was posted on 18 March on the Caf website.
The 64-year-old South African said: “We’ve identified judges and lawyers from the 54 countries in Africa to make sure that these are people who have integrity and have a track record,” he said.
“The independence is reflected by the decisions that were taken by the two bodies. The Caf disciplinary board took one decision. The Caf appeals board took a totally different position. That’s very important to us.”
Senegal’s football federation has lodged an appeal with the Court of Arbitration for Sport over Caf’s decision.
Increase to 28 teams
Following the executive committee meeting, Motsepe said the 24-team Cup of Nations would be increased to 28 teams.
However, he did not explain how the format would operate with four extra teams, nor when it would be implemented.
“It’s evidence of Caf’s commitment to world-class football with the best African players from all over the world returning to compete on the continent,” he added.
Motsepe also hailed Véron Mosengo-Omba who stepped down as general secretary. Samson Adamu will replace him until a successor is appointed.
“We are enormously grateful to Véron for his contribution to African football and the work he has done for the development and growth of the game on the continent,” said Motsepe.
(with newswires)