QATAR 2022: Why Africa must support Guinea against CAF

Like my boss, Alhaji Mumini Alao will always say, it’s not usually good to say ‘I told you so” after an event because it would mean something unpleasant and untoward has happened to elicit such a comment.

However, I couldn’t help but gloat and said I told you guys that something was not right with the award of hosting rights to Qatar for the 2022 World Cup. I remember I said it right here in Popular Side in 2010 immediately after the host nations were announced  that the rights awarded to Qatar  was “not for football reasons” even though the wisemen in FIFA would want us to believe the contrary.

My concerns were predicated on the fact that a summer World Cup (as we have come to know it now around the world) will not be feasible in Qatar in June because of the harsh weather.

However, to counter this, Qatar bid’s chief executive, Hassan al-Thawadi said at the time that: “Heat is not and will not be an issue. Each of the five stadiums will harness the power of the sun’s rays to provide a cool environment for players and fans by converting solar energy into electricity that will then be used to cool both fans and players at the stadiums. When games are not taking place, the solar installations at the stadiums will export energy onto the power grid. During matches, the stadiums will draw energy from the grid.”

To also suggest that Qatar had a better bid than other bidding countries like the USA, Japan, South Korea and Australia was a joke taken too far although, in their defence, it could be argued that Asia deserved to host after Africa had hosted through South Africa in 2010 and indeed Sepp Blatterechoed this sentiment when he said:“The Arabic world deserves a World Cup. They have 22 countries and have not had any opportunity to organize the tournament.”

More crucially was the allegation of bribery and corruption which had refused to die down five years after the bid was approved. Allegations persist even within FIFA circles that the World Cup hosting right was ‘bought’ by Qatar and this raises serious ethical questions for all those involved.

Of course there are other causes for concern but I will limit myself to the above three because they were the same ones that I addressed in my original article in 2010. Since then, over five years ago, a lot of water has passed under the bridge and we have now gotten to a stage where even the FIFA president has admitted that awarding the hosting rights to Qatar was a mistake.

This should be the part where I nod my head and say ‘I told you so’ but there are graver implications to Blatter’s admission that a mistake has been made. For one, nobody has been crucified for being induced financially to give Qatar the nod.

Forget Amos Adamu and Jacques Anouma.They were sacrificed to protect the bigger fishes or why would Blatter refuse to publish the Michael Garcia report which FIFA commissioned to investigate allegations of wrong-doing in the bidding process, among other things.

You can google and read up on the Garcia Report to have an idea of the rot I’m talking about.

However, the guys at FIFA have now agreed that the 2022 World Cup cannot be held in June/July so they have settled for a November/December date for the competition. The immediate implication is that we may have an abridged Champions League as the regular group fixtures which normally run to December will not be possible.

Alternatively, the European league season may have to be adjusted and that would mean not only the 2021/22 season but obviously the one before it. Of course it will also affect the transfer window which definitely will have to be moved away from June because the season would have been in full swing by then.

Then, if the World Cup is to end by December 18 like Blatter has decreed, that means the regular season would have ended at least two months before the kick-off of the competition, no?

The real crux of my gist today and for which I’m mightily furious is that in moving the 2022 World Cup to December, it will automatically affect the following year’s African Cup of Nations which has been slated to be hosted by Guinea.

Traditionally, the AFCON competition is played between January and February but it is practicably impossible to expect players who just returned from the World Cup by the second week of December to start preparing for the AFCON in January. Apart from the physical exhaustion of the players, the cost implications for impoverished African countries as well as the logistics for hosting such a competition will be too enormous.

The way out of the Qatar weather problem by FIFA is to create another weather problem for Africa. If the AFCON is shifted to mid-2023, even a dunce knows that June falls in the middle of the West African rainy season and the weather will be a huge hindrance.

If this is done, Guinea 2023 AFCON may turn out to be the worst-planned and least-attended in the history of the competition and FIFA, with the active connivance of CAF, would have deprived the Guineans of the joys and benefits of hosting the competition as you can bet your last copper most of the games would be disrupted by rain.

Surprisingly CAF, whose flagship competition the AFCON is and which ought to protect its integrity has reportedly submitted meekly to the suggestion that the competition will be shifted to June.

FIFA Secretary-General Jerome Valcke confirmed that the World Cup will be played in November/December 2022 and that FIFA has an agreement with the Confederation of African Football (CAF) to move the AFCON tournament to June 2023. What hubris! What impudence.

Why will CAF collaborate with FIFA to undermine its own competition, you want to ask, no? Well, reports have it that, in its bid to win the hosting rights for the World Cup, Qatar funded a $1.8m CAF congress and your guess is as good as mine where the chunk of that money went.

By 2023 it is obvious the current leadership of CAF will be long gone from office so they are willing to shed the responsibility of hosting a competition that will be dead on arrival onto the shoulders of those who will be in office at the time. Same goes for the geriatric Blatter.

According to the late philanthropist Chief MKO Abiola: “You cannot shave a man’s head in his absence”. CAF just did that to Guinea and it is morally reprehensible and to be condemned by all men of goodwill. It is Guinea today, it could be your country tomorrow.

Luckily the Guineans are not taking this without a fight. The country’s Sports minister Domani Dore categorically denied that the competition will be shifted to a June date. He was particularly appalled that his country, as potential hosts, was not consulted before the FIFA egg-heads and their CAF collaborators decreed a shift in date.

“We cannot accommodate the Nations Cup in June, it is the rainy season,” Dore told Guinea television. “CAF needs to take care to seek the advice of Guinea that we as a state decide which dates the tournament will be played. We understand the problem around the World Cup and a clash with the Nations Cup. But CAF needs to take care to ask our opinion. In June, we cannot accommodate a Nations Cup tournament. It’s not possible,” Dore said.

To even think that CAF agreed to a change in date of its most important competition WITHOUT SEEKING THE OPINION OF THE HOST COUNTRY is the height of arrogance, an assault on our collective intelligence as a continent and administrative ineptitude.

So, like my lawyer friends would say, the issues for determination are simple and straightforward.

One, did Qatar win the hosting bid on the claim that the weather will not be a problem because they will make air-conditioning available at the stadium and other venues? If this is true, then why is FIFA allowing them to renege on that pledge?

Two, did Qatar present the best bid in terms of infrastructure? I’m not sure because part of the bid proposal is that they planned to build stadia infrastructure as opposed to rival bidders like the US which already had all the venues it planned to use. Three, did money exchange hands to smoothen the path of Qatar to get the hosting right? It would seem to appear so judging by the frantic manner the Garcia investigation is being smothered.

Anyway, all of these are purely academic now that FIFA has decreed that the competition will hold in November but must Africa allow ourselves and our competition to be sacrificed by incompetent administrators who have been soiled by financial inducement?

This is evil. This is a product of avarice. We must take back our AFCON from Issa Hayatou and his band of greedy looters. Let’s stand up for what is just. Let’s stand up for Africa!

March 10, 2015