Rabat – It’s been three weeks since the AFCON chaos. Exactly 24 days have passed, and Moroccan fans are still chewing on the ashy taste of a 2025 AFCON final. Time has been frozen on an injustice for these past 24 days, and disappointment has curdled into a psychological ordeal.
Who’s to blame? An organization — the Confederation of African Football (CAF) — where optics smother integrity and where the playbook no longer meets the bare minimum standards of a modern sports confederation.
Its president, the South African Patrice Motsepe, had promised a revolution. Yet the result has so far been Institutional paralysis in key moments and a profound erosion of trust.
As Tarik Qattab points out in his sharp analysis of “Motsepe-style Governance,” titled “Patrice Motsepe: The Double Game of a Businessman of Power and Vacuity,” we are watching the drift of a president whose leadership is nothing but an optical illusion. “My Brother” keeps pulling stunts, forcing us to swallow lies the size of the continent.
Today, the divorce between him and the fans is final. Unless he finds a sudden surge of backbone at the next Comex in Tanzania, his already troubled legacy at the helm of CAF will be nothing more than a collection of blown opportunities.
A systematic sabotage of progress
Make no mistake: what happened on January 18 in Rabat was systematic sabotage. It was a Machiavellian plot hatched by those who refuse to see a rising Morocco developing and asserting itself across the board.
The goal was twofold: to trash the kingdom’s reputation regarding its ability to host this “crash test” before the 2030 World Cup, and to do everything possible to keep the Atlas Lions from lifting the continental trophy. While the second half of that mission succeeded, the first shattered against Moroccan efficiency and the dignity of our people.
According to psychiatrist Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, grief has five stages; but our recovery is currently blocked by injustice.
Denial: Total shock at seeing the Senegalese players walk off the field. “This isn’t happening, not in our house.”
Anger: A healthy rage at the footage of a premeditated assault.
Bargaining: Replaying the tape. “If only Brahim hadn’t tried the Panenka…”
Depression: That hollow feeling as a national celebration is stained by a lack of accountability.
Acceptance: This only comes through Justice. You don’t “accept” an insult; you fix it through the Law.
CAF’s parody of justice
We are living in a Samuel Beckett play. In the theater of the absurd that the CAF has become, we’re starring in a modern remake of Waiting for Godot—except here, we’re waiting on Motsepe. Here, we look for clarity and get nothing but “cosmetic smiles.”
Last week, the disciplinary committee allowed nonsense to win: they basically called it a draw between the aggressor and the victim. CAF’s absurd ruling read like a page from a typical Ionesco novel: they ignored Articles 82 and 84 of their own rulebook just to avoid upsetting the power players. They punish the ones who stayed on the field to avoid traumatizing the ones who ran away.
Opportunism as the only compass
What is “My Brother” doing? He’s playing both sides. His communication style is like that old song: “I turn my coat, always to the sunny side.” But by trying to be everyone’s friend for political and financial gain, the CAF president forgot to be a man of justice.
This Friday, the Comex meets in Dar es Salaam. The nerve! Instead of punishing the guilty through a quick Appeals Committee meeting, they prefer the theatrics and the “canned” speeches of the Comex. They announce they’ll rewrite the rules after the fact. It’s the classic “The Thing” method: sweep the scandal under the rug and redraw the North because you’re too incompetent to fix the compass.
And where does Morocco stand in this “shambles”? The kingdom is moving forward. We are heading for the Appeals Committee, the last stop before taking it to the CAS (Court of Arbitration for Sport) in Lausanne if we have to. There, justice and the rule of law will be served their due again, far from the emptiness of the current CAF presidency. Morocco will demand respect for the law because, whether in Beckett’s world or Motsepe’s, Godot never shows up.
