Motsepe at a crossroads as Afcon row and Wafcon cancellation puts reputations at risk | Osasu Obayiuwana

It has been a miserable few months for the Confederation of African Football (Caf) and its South African billionaire president Patrice Tlhopane Motsepe. On Sunday he had chance to clarify a few things, to set the record straight.

The CAF executive committee met at the Giza Palace hotel in Cairo and journalists were present for the briefing that followed.

The decision by Caf’s appeal board to strip Senegal of the Afcon trophy and hand it to Morocco has seen Motsepe facing the most treacherous and, without question, the most challenging period in his five-year presidency of the continent’s football governing body.

“It is very clear to me that Motsepe will have to show leadership to find a solution to a problem which I think cannot be solved by legal means alone,” an executive committee member told me on Sunday after the committee meeting.

“I think Motsepe has to put pressure on Morocco to withdraw the [original] complaint, so this case can end and Caf, as an organisation, can avoid humiliation at Cas [the court of arbitration for sport] … but will the Moroccan Football Federation president, Fouzi Lekjaa, agree to this?”

With the national mood in Morocco demanding that no compromise be made, as they insist that a huge injustice has been rectified, that will be an extremely hard request to meet if the one person who can guarantee it, King Mohammed VI, the country’s absolute monarch, does not order it.

With a courtroom in Switzerland – where Cas is based – being the arbiter to determine who won the 2025 Afcon, the reputation of the tournament continues to take a reputational pasting unprecedented in its 69-year history.

Motsepe made it clear on Sunday that the Caf administration will not make any further statements or take any action regarding the dispute until Cas issues its ruling. It is unclear when it will deliver its decision.

That is in legal order. But what should not, and cannot, wait until the Cas verdict is an urgent overhaul of Caf’s judicial bodies, to ensure its members are not tainted by personal and political interests that strip them of any credibility.

As Motsepe acknowledged, when I pointed this out to him on Sunday, it is an affront to judicial fairness and independence that Moez Nasri, the president of the Tunisian Football Federation, was a member of the five-man appeal board that took the 17 March decision to strip Senegal of the title. This fact is likely to be central, if not fundamental, to Cas’s decision regarding Senegal’s appeal.

“When I was informed that one of the people [among the appeal board judges] was a president of one of our football associations, I responded: ‘But come on, what is this? How did he end up there?’” Motsepe said in Cairo. “Of course, we must draw lessons from this kind of thing… He [Moez Nasri] shouldn’t have been there. We need more rigour [in how Caf’s jurists are appointed].”

Motsepe was less candid on other important issues, such as the decision to keep Veron Mosengo-Omba as general secretary beyond the 15 October 2025 date he was permitted to remain in office, having exhausted his final three-year employment extension.

“We acted in accordance with what was provided in that agreement [the nature and details of which Motsepe did not explain] and that’s very important … At the last exco, last year, he reminded us, because I forgot. I don’t remember what’s in the agreement,” he said, offering no further insight into what led to the extension of Mosengo-Omba’s term.

I was also none the wiser when Motsepe explained why the pledge that he made in Dar es Salaam, that Wafcon, the Women’s Africa Cup of Nations, would be held as scheduled between 17 March and 3 April, was broken.

This is what he said: “When I was in Tanzania I was clear, in my mind, that despite the challenges at that time, everything had to be done to make sure that the women’s competition continues. It has been postponed, just like last year, [when] we had to postpone the Chan [African Nations Championship]. It [the Wafcon] will be enormously successful. We have a duty, and I have a duty, to explain …

“For as long as I am the president of Caf, whether I know of or I am not aware of problems, or deficiencies, or shortcomings, I have to account [for them]. The buck stops with me … We have engaged with the member associations [that were to have had their teams at the Wafcon] that there were circumstances [leading to the postponement] that we had not foreseen.”

A former Caf lawyer, critical of how governance, risk and compliance rules have been observed in breach rather than in strict obedience, said: “Motsepe’s responses reflected a lack of awareness, highlighting how fragile the institution has become.”

Of the 23-man executive committee, Samir Sobha of Mauritius has been the most open about the organisation’s self-inflicted wounds. “The decision [by the appeal board] to designate a winner based on Articles 82, 83, and 84 of the competition regulations has generated deep incomprehension and a genuine sense of injustice,” he told the Guardian.

“An injustice cannot be remedied by another decision perceived as equally unjust. Rather than restoring balance, such a choice risks intensifying frustrations and calls for a deeper reflection on how to safeguard fairness and uphold the honour of African football.”

Senegal’s defiant trophy display at the Stade de France in Paris before Saturday’s friendly against Peru – an unequivocal sign that they have no intention to hand the trophy to Morocco – came a day before the Caf exco meeting and only highlights the bitterness and deep divisions within African football over the January Afcon final.

“Even if I am the last person in Senegal, I am going to keep fighting for our rights. Things need to change in Caf. Our credibility is at stake,” said Augustin Senghor, a member of the executive committee who is also the head of Caf’s legal committee. He publicly excoriated the appeal board for the 17 March verdict.

How Motsepe steers the Caf ship through the choppy governance waters that threaten to sink it will define his legacy, either as a testament to his conflict-resolving sagacity or as prima facie evidence of a lack of governance competence.

Posterity will reveal which of the two it will be.