Gianni Infantino's shocking remarks (itions) for African football

Text by: David Kalfa Follow

The Seminar on the development of competitions and infrastructures in Africa, organized by the African Football Confederation (CAF) and the International Federation (FIFA) in Salé, ended with an uncompromising observation from the boss of FIFA . Gianni Infantino offers nothing less than a major overhaul of African football, including an African Cup of Nations every four years.

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Money and aid against reforms. This is how we could sum up the proposals made by Gianni Infantino , the president of the International Football Federation ( FIFA ), during a “Seminar on the development of competitions and infrastructures in Africa” organized this weekend in Morocco.

An uncompromising observation

Between spades and promises addressed to the members of the African Football Confederation ( CAF ), the boss of FIFA drew up an uncompromising report on the state of African football on February 1 in Salé. “ I'm not interested in developing football in Africa. What I want is to project African football into the world elite , he started. We've been talking about its development for 50 years, 40 years, 30 years ”!

" Pelé predicted an incredible future for African football ," he said. He said that before the year 2000, an African team would win the World Cup. It is 2020 and not only has no African team won the World Cup, but it feels like we are backtracking ! ”

Gianni Infantino notably criticized the poor performance of African competitions. “ I see that we are organizing things, championships, national team competitions, the African Cup of Nations, the CHAN… Everyone is participating. But it doesn't really have the impact we would like it to have . ”

A CAN every four years

Joseph Blatter's successor to FIFA then broke a taboo concerning the African Cup of Nations . “ We have been playing CAN every two years for decades. Are we seeing a development of infrastructure and income for African football ? The CAN now generates twenty times less than the Euro. I have traveled to 41 countries and what I saw was not really an explosion of modern stadiums , he said, almost joking. What I'm asking you - but it's your decision - is to discuss and think about passing the African Cup of Nations every four years, instead of every two years. Of course, provided that the income we lose is compensated. But we take care of that. If we work together, we will not only double the income of a CAN. We will multiply them by four or six, by presenting a product not only for Africa but for the whole world. […] We must make sure that the African Cup of Nations is an unmissable world event which enters the international calendar ”.

An overhaul of other competitions

Gianni Infantino also invited to invest more globally in women's, youth and club competitions. " We are going to propose to create a world league of national teams for women's football, in order to allow all the teams to be able to play with continuity ," he announced. And we will also invest in increasing the number of participants for young girls' competitions, to ensure that there are more competitions ”.

Another global reform, from which Africa is supposed to benefit: a reorganization of the age classes with U16, U18 and U20 tournaments (rather than under 17 and under 20 only) is under consideration at FIFA. So that the apprentices African footballers will compete more regularly in youth competitions.

On the subject of interclub cups, Gianni Infantino, on the other hand, offers a new competition, specific to Africa: " Create a real pan-African club league." A league that would cover the entire continent, with 20 to 24 clubs. With, perhaps, a maximum of two teams per country. These teams would continue to evolve in their national championships in parallel. In this way, at the end of the season, we could crown the African champion. […] An African superleague could generate at least 200 million commercial revenues overnight. "

A “ top class ” stadium in each African country

Before revolutionizing the competitions, Gianni Infantino insisted on the need to invest massively in infrastructure, stadiums first. " 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 ," he said. . 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. These are situations which obviously affect the image of African football. That is why it is necessary to invest in infrastructure ”.

To do so, the one who was re-elected in June 2019 said he wanted to find a billion dollars, notably from development banks. " We are developing a project [...] to generate and mobilize $ 1 billion to be invested in infrastructure in Africa, to build at least one top class stadium in each African country ," he said. My goal is that there is at least one top class stadium in each of the 54 African countries. This is not the case today, for more than half of the countries of the continent. When the national team plays, it should be a source of pride for the whole nation. But how can you be proud in a stadium that was built 50 or 60 years ago and is crumbling ”?

Professionalize referees

The third axis of the reform announced by Gianni Infantino concerns arbitration. " Unfortunately, we have had evidence that there are situations that affect arbitration in Africa, which lead to corruption," he pointed out, while stressing that these abuses take place all over the world. . We will simply take the twenty best referees from Africa and professionalize them […] by giving them a professional contract. They will be fully employed FIFA referees from FIFA. […] The referees must be above all suspicion. And for that, we must protect them. It is our duty ”.

Gianni Infantino's intervention in Salé (Video)

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