Motsepe Wins Second Term As Head of Confederation of African Football

12 March 2025

Radio France Internationale

By Paul Myers

Billionaire businessman Patrice Motsepe was confirmed on Wednesday as African football's top administrator for four years.

The 63-year-old South African was re-elected in Cairo at the 14th general assembly of the Confederation of African Football (Caf) which organises 13 competitions on the continent including the Champions League, the women's Africa Cup of Nations and the men's Cup of Nations.

Motsepe, who amassed his fortune in mining in South Africa, was first anointed to lead the 54 continental football federations in March 2021.

During his initial term in office, he made Caf's finances his priority. The deficit has been cut from 37 to 24 million euros.

Over the next four years, Motsepe is expected to continue work on reducing the debt via new sponsorship deals.

He will also aim to appease African administrators over the organisation of the confederation's most prestigious competitions.

The 2024 African Nations Championships - which should have been held last summer in Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania - was rescheduled in January 2025 for August 2025.

The 35th Africa Cup of Nations, tabled for July and August 2025 in Morocco, was moved to December 2025 and January 2026, in order to avoid a clash with the newly expanded Fifa Club World Cup in the United States in June and July.

Just before the end of the 34th Africa Cup of Nations in Cote d'Ivoire in February 2024, Motsepe hinted that the Morocco event might not be in July 2025.

"There's a lot of competing events at the same time," he said a day after meeting Gianni Infantino, the head of world football's governing body Fifa.

Changes

In June 2024, Motsepe outlined the dates for the 2025 edition. "I am confident that the Africa Cup of Nations in Morocco will be extremely successful and the best in the history of this competition," he said after a meeting of the executive committee at the Caf headquarters in Cairo.

It was the third consecutive reconfiguration of an event that started in 1957.

The 2023 tournament was due to be held in June 2022 but the Ivorian rainy season put paid to that just as similar meteorological verities forced a delay until January 2022 of Cameroon's scheduled dates of June and July 2021.

During the assembly on Wednesday, Samuel Eto'o, the former Cameroon international, won a place on the Caf executive committee.

His election as a representative for the central African region comes less than a week after he won an appeal to stand for the post.

In July 2024, Caf said the 44-year-old had seriously violated the principles of ethics, integrity and sportsmanship by becoming a brand ambassador for a betting organisation. He was excluded by Caf's governance committee in January from seeking a post on the executive committee. But he took his case to the Court of Arbitration for Sport, who ruled in his favour.

Last September, Fifa banned Eto'o from attending Cameroon's matches for six months for violating disciplinary regulations, after allegedly verbally abusing match officials at the under-20 women's World Cup in Colombia.

Fifa found Eto'o guilty of offensive behaviour, violation of the principles of fair play and misconduct of players and officials.

Read or Listen to this story on the RFI website.