There might have been a time that playing the AFCON every two years was important to African football, but not anymore By Prof Patrick Omo-Osagie

Let me whine about the AFCON, the every-other-year football tournament for African national teams. Why are we playing this tournament every two years when CAF the organizers are unable to increase the prize money for three consecutive tournaments? CAF just announced that the sixteen competing teams will share a prize of $10 million. The winner is expected to take home $1.5 million and runner up, $1 million. These amounts are hardly enough to cover the expenses of the teams that go through a qualifying series and preparations for the tournament itself. The AFCON cannot continue to hold every two years if the countries that participate do not even get back money that covers expenses. I believe that CAF can do better than the $10 million prize pot.

There might have been a time that playing the AFCON every two years was important to African football, but not anymore. African football has come of age, the continent now provides five teams to the World Cup, has numerous players in the European leagues and we have the South African league that is highly rated among world football leagues. Africa does not need this over exposure of our national teams and we sure can’t afford to continue to play every two years. They say football is big business, if African football cannot find enough sponsors every two years it is time to go to a four year cycle. All other football confederations play in four year cycles and they definitely have more prize money than CAF. The prize money for the European Championship is a hefty $300 million; in South America the winner gets $7 million and in Asia the top three teams share $10 million. Time for CAF to cut our coat according to our size or what we think benefits the sport will eventually kill the sport in Africa.

I know we as Africans care little about how this AFCON tournament affects the European leagues, but it is time we start paying serious attention to how we disrupt some of these leagues. I know it is on the FIFA calendar but FIFA does not pay the salary of these players; in some cases as much as fifty thousand pounds a week. When you pay that kind of money, you want to use that player as much as you can and to be available to play in big games. Right now in Europe, we have many very well paid African players that are not in service for their club but are in service for nation. I understand the sentiments of playing for your country but as we all know here in Africa, these players have to care for themselves, family and future. My fear is that if we continue with this tournament every two years, I can bet that it will start to affect the contracts of star African players, especially those that are catalysts on their squads e.g the Yaya Toures, Pierre-Emerick Aubameyangs and Yacine Brahimis.

  Caf President Issa Hayatou

The life blood of football today, is television and commercial money. UEFA collected $1.6 billion for 2012 Euro championship. It paid out $244 million in prize money and $123 million to the European clubs with players in the tournament. I cannot find any sources that will provide me with what CAF gets as revenues for the AFCON but I know it is nowhere near the amount collected by UEFA. But for my own sanity, I take the $244 million paid out by UEFA and the $10 million paid out by CAF and do some “abracadabra” I come up with a number just under $100 million for CAF revenues in organizing AFCON. Whatever the amount really is, CAF must work very hard to increase its revenues and be transparent in its financial dealings. One more thing about the European championship - the 2016 edition with 24 teams has estimated revenues in the region of $2.6 billion and fast rivaling the World Cup.


Wasting stadiums and Hayatou’s lack of ideas

The biggest reason advanced by many for countries hosting international tournaments is that it helps you develop your infrastructure, in this case your football stadiums. But is there any African nation that needs four international standard football stadiums? I guess not, we can only look to South Africa that has many World Cup stadiums that are today lying fallow with no football games to host. With this in mind, CAF should encourage more joint partnership between countries. This will be better financial deals for African countries that want to host. Upgrading or building two stadiums is good enough for African countries, building four is a financial waste and we can learn from UEFA; that despite the huge revenues it makes from the tournament, it will always go with the prudent decision like co-hosting when possible.

One last thing to whine about; what is wrong with us Africans? How is one man [Issa Hayatou] in the leadership position of CAF since 1988? Even though he has done some good things for African football (5 World Cup teams), I see no reason for him to have held on for 27 years. There comes a time that everyone runs out of ideas and I think he has run dry of ideas. It is time for Issa Hayatou to go.