Next week Friday marks exactly one year since Madagascan Ahmad was elected the Confederation of African Football (CAF) president – ending Cameroonian Issa Hayatou’s 29-year rule.
Ahmad’s change message reverberated across Africa – earning him an overwhelming mandate to rejig the continental body that was lagging behind in a fast changing game.
And true to his word, the 58-year-old has worked to deliver so much within a very short period.
Unprecedented CAF Symposium in Rabat, Morocco fashioned “New Governance and Vision for the Future” set the change train in motion.
It presented an all-inclusive platform whereby stakeholders from all spheres of the game for days deliberated and adopted numerous resolutions that radically changed the face of the organization and the game itself.
Among them was expansion of the Africa’s premium tournament AFCON from 16 to 24 teams in a move that will see more teams enjoy high level football.
The tournament’s calendar and that of the Interclub competitions (the CAF Champions League and the Confederations Cup) was also changed in response to new global demands.
Players in foreign leagues especially in Europe can now fully represent their countries with pride in the AFCON without the fear of losing their positions at club level as the tournament will now take place during off season (June/July) as opposed to January when leagues are active.
For the first time, former footballers have been fully embraced with some like Ghana’s Anthony Baffoe roped in direct management of the organization’s affairs at CAF headquarters in Cairo.
The annual national associations allocation now stands at $100,000 and in another first CAF has offered financial assistance to the five Africans teams going to the World Cup in Russia.
Referees indemnities are now taken cared of by CAF unlike before when national associations carried the burden – increasing the risks of the game getting compromised.
Video Assistant Referee (VAR) technology was applied for the first time in Africa during the recent CAF Super Cup match between Wydad Casablanca of Morocco and DR Congo’s TP Mazembe.
CAF recently introduced CAF Pro coaching license that will enable African coaches acquire modern training skills in line with the best practices elsewhere in the world.
A few top coaches including AS Vita Club’s Florent Ibenge and Mamelodi Sundowns’ Pitso Mosimane were chosen to undergo the training on a trial basis before it is rolled out across the continent.
Women and youth football have also not been forgotten in Ahmad’s reform agenda as promised. The Qualifiers for the U17 AFCON have been reorganized regionally starting with the Tanzania 2019.
This week saw the first ever CAF symposium on women football being staged in Marrakech, Morocco to chat a new course for the rapidly growing but underdeveloped game in the continent.
Some of the resolutions passed at the historic meet include CAF training more women’s administrators, coaches and referees.
Participation of women in all decision making and CAF to ensure that the budget dedicated to women’s football in every association is spent on it.
To give CAF a continental image, Ahmad has implemented a policy whereby 50% of staff at CAF headquarters in Cairo comes from the host country Egypt while the other half from the rest of Africa.
A lot still needs to be done to grow the African game though and Ahmad cannot afford to rest.
More specifically, participating in the interclub championships still remains financially straining for most teams and ways to lessen the burden should be explored.
The actualization of women’s version of the competitions would be a great step in developing the game in Africa.
