The Confederation of African Football (CAF) made an outrageous decision this weekend to suspend the Togo football team from the next two editions of the Africa Cup of Nations and to impose a fine of $50 000 on the Togolese National Football Association.
The Confederation of African Football (CAF) made an outrageous decision this weekend to suspend the Togo football team from the next two editions of the Africa Cup of Nations and to impose a fine of $50 000 on the Togolese National Football Association.
This is a completely crazy example of punishing the victims of a terrible crime. As the team’s bus crossed the border from the Congo into the enclave of Cabinda, a group of heavily armed men opened fire with machine guns on the unarmed and unescorted bus carrying the Togolese team and support staff.
The host nation of this year’s Cup of Nations, Angola was fully aware of the risks involved in allowing
the Togo team to go to Cabinda where the Front for the Liberation of the Enclave of Cabinda (Flec) has been waging a war of independence for decades.
If anyone should be held responsible for the absence of the Togo team it should be the Angolan authorities, not the Togolese team.
The tiny oil-rich enclave of Cabinda has been trying to cede from Angola because its inhabitants feel neglected by the Angolan government in Luanda.
The rebel movement, Flec, says that the inhabitants of Cabinda receive very little benefits from the vast amounts of oil pumped out of the enclave.
Some analysts say that the Luandan government insisted that several games of the African Cup of Nations tournament be played in Cabinda as a public display of unity of the greater Angola.
In other words, the Angolan government took a calculated risk by holding soccer matches in Cabinda. However, the gamble did not pay off instead of showing the world how unified Angola is, it was in fact a grisly demonstration of just how divided the country is.
Two members of the support staff lost their lives, several members of the team received bullet wounds and everyone on that bus was severely traumatised even if they did not receive the slightest physical injury.
Immediately after the attack, the members of the Togolese team asked to withdraw from the
tournament, then a few days later, they decided that they would rather play. However, by that time,
the Togo government had issued instructions for the whole team to return home.
CAF has come out heavily against the decision to withdraw from the tournament because it said in a statement, “The decision taken by the political authorities is infringing CAF and CAN regulations”.
In other words, there is a turf war going on between the government of Togo and the tin pot dictators at CAF, and because CAF cannot punish the Togo government directly, it has decided to punish the Togolese football association and its players.
The unfortunate players have been punished several times over because self serving politicians are willing to sacrifice the interests and even the lives of others in order to score a few cheap points.
Steven Lang is the editor of Grocott’s Mail
