East Africa needs to take over CAF for its football to change

Ivan Mugisha East Africa is the only region on the continent that has not won the African Cup of Nations (AFCON) since its inception in 1957. Football in this region is probably one of the saddest and most boring stories ever told. Some could argue it is bewitched – and they’d have a point. The national teams have nothing to report home about, save for regional “teacups” like CECAFA – which only they can win anyway. They huff and puff every year and thousands turn up to watch with nothing but hope. They sometimes deceive and put on amazing displays, and the fans are smitten in scintillating fashion. When we suddenly get a win against a stronger team from the west or a weaker opponent from the south, the fans drown in joy and the Vuvuzela sounds can be heard all the way from Kigali City to the Coast of Zanzibar. But like a boy who falls in love at first sight and later realizes that the girl isn’t that pretty, the fans soon lose hope and fade in tears, realizing that their national teams are substandard – that they are too weak to qualify for continental and international competitions. Our best moment came in the year 1978, when Uganda reached the final of AFCON which was hosted and won by Ghana. At the time, the competition had only eight nations participating, and the Uganda Cranes had been mounded alongside giants Morocco who had won the previous competition in 1976 – as well as Tunisia and Congo (now DRC). The Cranes went on to top their group with convincingly expected wins against Congo and Morocco, with their only loss inflicted by Tunisia. But a much larger test awaited them in the semi-finals against Nigeria. Against all odds, the Uganda Cranes beat Nigeria and reached the final, and were probably outdone by fatigue and inexperience when they eventually lost out to champions Ghana. However, the argument still looms that Uganda produced probably the most fearless underdog that the competition has ever seen. Thirty-seven years later, no country in the region has surpassed or repeated that milestone, which has prompted some rather absurd narrative about football hopelessness in East Africa. Since then, Uganda has never stepped at any other AFCON tournament, while Rwanda have done so once, in 2004, and done nothing more than that thereafter. The disappointment cuts across to the other three members of the East Africa Community (EAC) – Tanzania, Kenya and Burundi, who have only a handful of participations among them. Well, people say we don’t have football talent – but that is pretty naïve. We can tie this failure down to many factors but lack of talent. Literally, every male in the region has been a footballer of sorts at a certain time in their life. So our problem in the region is definitely not one of talent. Looking at the development of football on the continent, East Africa’s main hurdle can be tied down to two main factors. One is – EAC’s isolation in CAF matters and the other is - internal management of football development. Issa Hayatou, a former Cameroonian athletics star, has been the President of the Confederation of African Football (CAF) since 1988. In his 27 years at the helm, Hayatou has largely failed to implement a rotational system to benefit all regions in hosting the largest tournament on the continent. This means that his beloved West Africa is always a favourite to host the AFCON – especially now that North Africa is going through a cycle of political upheavals. It is totally unexplainable, almost criminal; to see that not a single EAC country has hosted the tournament since it began in 1957. If Hayatou cared for the continent and not only one or two regions, he’d have come up with a system that allows all regions to host AFCON and thus harvest some of its many fruits which include; showcasing talent to worldwide scouts and generating revenues for the football federations. This unfair isolation means that East Africa needs to come up with a strong strategy to take over management of CAF from Hayatou and either get our own as the head or support someone who is committed to developing football in the entire continent. mugishaivan@yahoo.com

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East Africa needs to take over CAF for its football to change