FIFA Scandal Leads Africans to Speak Out

1HR Sports News

Issa Hay­a­tou and Sepp Blatter

With the res­ig­na­tion of Sepp Blat­ter com­ing just four days after his fifth re-elec­tion to the head of FIFA, many are won­der­ing what is in store for Issa Hay­a­tou, the head of the Con­fed­er­a­tion of African Foot­ball (CAF).

Some are say­ing he should be next in line for the head of FIFA, which will most like­ly vote anoth­er leader in by the spring. An obvi­ous next choice, giv­en FIFA’s com­mit­ment, espe­cial­ly under Blat­ter, to devel­op­ing foot­ball pro­grams across the glob­al south nations.

But oth­ers across the media and twit­ter­verse are call­ing for his res­ig­na­tion next — as an even longer incum­bent and steeped just as deeply in scan­dal and alle­ga­tions of corruption.

While Blat­ter has been re-elect­ed to the head of FIFA con­sis­tent­ly since 1998, Hay­a­tou has sat at the head of African foot­ball even longer, since 1988. Since the arrival of Blat­ter, the African and Asian foot­ball fed­er­a­tions have con­sis­tent­ly and staunch­ly sup­port­ed him. And in return have received bil­lions in devel­op­ment pro­gram dol­lars. Even as the most recent scan­dal broke, Hay­a­tou promised all 54 CAF votes for Blatter.

As the inves­ti­ga­tions con­tin­ue into Qatar and Russia’s host­ing bid wins, it has come to light that South Africa gave $10 mil­lion to Jack Warn­er, pres­i­dent of the Caribbean foot­ball asso­ci­a­tion (CONCACAF) in exchange for guar­an­teed sup­port for their bid. Warn­er has been indict­ed on cor­rup­tion charges by the U.S. Jus­tice Depart­ment and cur­rent­ly has an INTERPOL red notice (inter­na­tion­al arrest war­rant) issued again him.

Charges of bribery, rack­e­teer­ing, and mon­ey laun­der­ing total­ing over $150 mil­lion over 24 years point to an orga­ni­za­tion steeped in cor­rup­tion at all lev­els and regions. The U.S. Jus­tice Depart­ment unsealed a 47-count indict­ment in fed­er­al court in Brook­lyn that detailed charges against 14 peo­ple for pro­vid­ing “lucra­tive media and mar­ket­ing rights” to soc­cer tour­na­ments as kickbacks.

Though not a part of the ini­tial indict­ment, Hay­a­tou has been named to be brought in for ques­tion­ing in rela­tion to a sep­a­rate inves­ti­ga­tion look­ing into the award­ing of the 2018 and 2022 World Cups to Rus­sia and Qatar. In addi­tion, recent­ly in April, he led an oppor­tunis­tic vote to remove an age lim­it on CAF offi­cials. The removal of the age lim­it would allow Hay­a­tou, now 68, to seek four more years in 2017 when his cur­rent man­date will expire. His over­stay as head of CAF is just one of many rea­sons he needs to step down. Not to men­tion his con­de­scend­ing remark that accu­sa­tions of cor­rup­tion are “just the way life is.”

Now is the time for CAF to move towards fix­ing their sport rather than bemoan­ing the loss of a mon­eyed sup­port­er in Blat­ter. The response across the African con­ti­nent has been one of foot stamp­ing and call­ing vic­tims rather than any con­struc­tive steps towards change.

A South African offi­cial com­pared the arrests to Amer­i­can inter­ven­tion in the Iraq war; Ghana FA leader Kwe­si Nyan­takyi said there is a lack of respect for Africans because the media has ques­tioned their sup­port of Blat­ter giv­en the cor­rup­tion; the head of the Nige­ria Foot­ball Asso­ci­a­tion has said they do not want to “exper­i­ment.”

Unfor­tu­nate­ly for the African foot­ball asso­ci­a­tions, it’s time to exper­i­ment. To bring in new blood, to rid the sport of cor­rup­tion, and bring some respect back to the game. While busi­ness as usu­al has been a boon for sports devel­op­ment in Africa (and Asia), it’s time to step up and call for reform. A FIFA with­out cor­rup­tion can only mean that more mon­ey gets down to the projects on the ground where it needs to go, rather than lin­ing the pock­ets of top offi­cials — which, for African foot­ball asso­ci­a­tions, is a good thing.

It is hard to move on with­out new lead­er­ship. FIFA exec­u­tive offi­cials around the world should seri­ous­ly con­sid­er their role in per­pet­u­at­ing the orga­nized crime of the past two decades, even if they have not (yet) been indicted.

It is unfor­tu­nate that such a growth in the sport across Africa and Asia had to be high­light­ed as the result of cor­rup­tion, but now is the chance for those regions to speak up and push for reform. Not only to get beyond the scan­dal, but to prove that invest­ment is tru­ly worth it, and not with dirty mon­ey. Even with the most recent CAF state­ment to “safe­guard the moral and eth­i­cal val­ues” of foot­ball, more prac­ti­cal action must be taken.