New CAF boss, Motsepe vows to take African football to the corporate world
By George Aluo
The new South African President of African football, Dr Patrice Motsepe has declared that his immediate target is to take African football to the corporate world in a bid to attract more sponsorship.
Motsepe said for African football to compete at the world stage, it must be built into a big brand, insisting that the era when the continent spends millions of dollars every year paying for TV rights of leagues outside Africa would be brought to an end.
Cafonline.com quoted Motsepe as saying he would in the next 12 months visit all the CAF 54 member associations to understand their problems and find a way forward.
Motsepe who is a business mogul stressed that things just can’t remain the same under his watch.
In his words…”I’m very excited. There is a great deal of urgency of getting things done. There is going to be a lot of work and a lot of running. We have to make sure that African football is not just competitive but globally successful. Africa spends millions of dollars every year paying for tv rights of leagues outside Africa. There is a need to build our own products and we will succeed.”
“The face of African football will never be the same again. 95% of our conversations will be about football and that is fine but there must be that 5% where we discuss the importance of the private sector partnerships. We need to restore the pride, the dignity and the respect of Africa,”
“There is a great deal of urgency and this is something we all know. One of the things I’m going to propose is that we need to meet regularly as the Member Associates Presidents. We need to close the distance between the members and CAF. I believe we have a clear understanding of what needs to be done. At times we find fancy words to describe what needs to be done but the most important thing is implementation.”
“There must be a quantitative clear programme that has targets. We talk about growth and development but we must talk about being self-sustainable.”
“We must also talk about the results on the field. The world will only respect us when our national teams can compete at world stage and be successful.”
