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The islanders are said to be the victims of powerful forces in the governing body of African football that serve their own political interests. The same case can be argued for the exclusion of Western Sahara.
“Issa Hayatou gave birth to the Zanzibar CAF [Confederation of African Football] The dream of membership, Ahmad Ahmad strangled him and now Patrice Motsepe has completely buried him, “said Tanzanian soccer consultant Michael Mwebe.
This was a reaction to the CAF’s decision to modify article four of its statutes without the prior requirement of 30 days in advance. The CAF has now made it mandatory for any African soccer federation wishing to join its hierarchy to be the only representative of an independent country that is a member of the United Nations. This effectively ended CAF’s dreams of Zanzibar, making the autonomous region of Tanzania a victim of a larger political battle that is supposedly led by Morocco.
“Basically, CAF has sealed the only loophole that allowed Zanzibar to keep pushing for elusive membership,” Mwebe said.
According to a close source, the amendment was spearheaded by the president of the Royal Moroccan Football Federation, Fouzi Lekjaa, and approved by the CAF executive committee without being submitted to any debate during the body’s elective general assembly held on 12 March in Rabat, Morocco.
The move is seen as an attempt to bury any possibility of Western Sahara, a disputed territory off the coast of the Maghreb region in North and West Africa, of which 20% is controlled by the self-proclaimed Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic and 80% % for Morocco – to join the ranks of the CAF.
Condemned in Zanzibar as parochial and politically motivated, the passage of the amendment was hailed as a “masterstroke in sports diplomacy” in Morocco, according to the March 15 editorial in the Moroccan newspaper Assabah.
“It is just a selfish game that Morocco is playing, since they know that Western Sahara is already recognized by the African Union, and the only way left to prevent them from joining the CAF is to introduce the requirement of being a member of the UN”, said Suleiman Suleiman Shabaan, former club. Zanzibar Football Association (ZFA) license manager.
The timing could not have been more suitable for the North African kingdom, as it happened when CAF was undergoing a transition with Motsepe being selected as its first chairman of the Anglophone grouping. Motsepe is from South Africa, one of the countries that recognizes the independence of Western Sahara.
The 59-year-old billionaire replaced Ahmad, the embattled Malagasy who was forced to resign after the world soccer body FIFA imposed a five-year ban on him for corruption. On appeal, the Court of Arbitration for Sport reduced his ban to two years.
Motsepe’s rise to the helm of African football leadership was a mere coronation, the culmination of an intense lobbying that saw his three opponents – Ivorian Jacques Anouma, Senegalese Augustin Senghor and Mauritanian Ahmed Yahya – give up in his favor in a proxy agreement believed to have been negotiated by Lekjaa and FIFA President Gianni Infantino. Infantino, a Swiss Italian, has since been criticized by international media for meddling in polls against FIFA guidelines.
Zanzibar’s long struggle
Zanzibar has run its football with the support of its semi-autonomous government, supporters and some favors from the Tanzania Football Federation (TFF) for 95 years, making the ZFA one of the oldest football organizations in Africa.
In this period, he has led four divisional leagues, three youth leagues and the national team, the Heroes of Zanzibar, who do not participate in continental championships, but play in the Senior Challenge Cup of the Regional Council of Central and East African Football Associations ( Cecafa). Clubs from the four island region have competed in CAF inter-clubs since 2004, when the mainland’s governing body granted Zanzibar “associate member” status. This was a gentlemen’s agreement, without legal backing, extended to the ZFA by former CAF president Hayatou.
Despite its clear efforts to grow the game, the ZFA’s clamor for official status, which would guarantee financial and technical support, remains a mirage. After decades of lobbying, including a failed proposal to join FIFA in 2005, the ZFA was accepted as the 55th member of the CAF on March 17, 2017, in a vote (51/54) by the general assembly. in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
This was a proud moment, not only for the ZFA but also for former President Jamal Malinzi’s TFF, who had tabled the motion. The joy, however, lasted only four months, as Ahmad, newly elected to succeed Hayatou for a long time, alone and without citing any specific statute, reversed the decision.
“They were admitted without duly examining the statutes, which are very clear,” argued Ahmad, who told the BBC during an extraordinary CAF congress in Morocco that the governing body could not admit two different associations from one country. “The definition of country comes from the African Union and the United Nations,” he added.
But such a requirement had not existed before, not even in FIFA, whose membership comprises 211 national associations, which are 18 members more than the total number of UN members. Some of the non-UN members of FIFA include Gibraltar, Kosovo and the Faroe Islands.
Tanzania’s hand in exclusion
According to a source who was aware of what was happening but did not want to be identified as the matter remains politically sensitive, Ahmad was only fulfilling the wishes of the Tanzanian government. “Initially, the Tanzanian government, through the Ministry of Sports, approved Zanzibar’s candidacy. However, this position changed immediately after admission, with Jamal Malinzi being thrown under the bus for allegedly acting on his own.” the source said.
Consequently, Malinzi was arrested shortly thereafter and charged with 20 counts of embezzlement and money laundering. He was convicted of a single crime and released after two years in detention after paying a fine of $ 220.
The question of Zanzibar obtaining full CAF membership is a taboo subject that is discussed quietly, especially in mainland Tanzania, because it coincides with the islanders’ quest for independence. The regime of the late President John Pombe Magufuli abhorred freedom of expression.
“Although not officially, there is a strong belief, and people talk about it in secret, that the government is opposed to Zanzibar joining the CAF as a full member. And it is not just in football. An attempt to for Zanzibar to join the IOC [International Olympic Committee] it was equally frustrated by the government and the issue has never been raised again, “Shabaan said.” Any quest for such recognition is seen as a direct affront to trade union Tanzania and could trigger further demand for Zanzibar’s banned independence. “
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Signed in 1964 between Zanzibar’s first president, Abeid Karume, and Julius Nyerere of Tanganyika, the union pact saw Zanzibar merge with Tanganyika to form the United Republic of Tanzania, with Nyerere as president and Karume as an alternate.
“The usual fear [of an independent Zanzibar] aforementioned [by Tanzania] it is security. Zanzibar’s access to the sea makes the continent vulnerable to foreign aggressors, “said Thabit Jacob, a researcher in the political economy of development at the University of Roskilde in Denmark.
Despite the fact that the future looks bleak for the ZFA more than ever, Shabaan can still see a glimmer of light. That the general assembly did not reverse its decision, as required by law, gives him hope that one day Zanzibar will obtain justice. “The authority to admit or expel a member rests with the general assembly, and to date it has never sat down to revoke the legitimate membership of the ZFA. The ZFA is simply an oppressed member of the CAF.”
Meanwhile, Zanzibar will go ahead with its soccer programs despite inadequate support and will hold on to the associate member status of the ZFA, its only source of international recognition for now, as it reflects on the future.
“Perhaps the biggest problem now for Zanzibar is whether they can continue to have that special membership, which allows them to participate in CAF inter-club competitions,” Mwebe said.
CAF had not yet responded to questions posed on the subject at the time of publication.
