History of the Confederation of African Football

The popularity of football in black communities arose from conditions present throughout colonial Africa: economic expansion, massive urban growth, and access to Western education, albeit for a small minority.

During the 1950s, black athletes, organizers, and nationalists fought a long struggle with the entrenched white interests reinforced by apartheid.

However, it relapsed again, after a three-man fact finding mission led by the newly elected president, Sir Stanley Rous, traveled to South Africa, and concluded that the National Football Federation had nothing to do with Government instituted Racial Discrimination.

They got together on June 7 and 8 at the Avenida Hotel and decided among other things to create an African Football Confederation and to organized a competition among countries beginning from 1957 in Khartoum, Sudan, where the statutes and regulations of the new body would be drawn.

Engineer Salem was elected first CAF President while Tessema, Abdel Halim and Fell were voted into the executive committee as members with Youssef Mohamed as the first honorary General Secretary.

The first African Cup of Nations kicked off on February 10 without South Africa, who were disqualified after they failed to present a multi-racial team.

The young organisation suffered an early setback when its important documents were lost during a fire outbreak at the offices of the Sudan Football Association where they were kept.

Thus going by Article 5 of these statutes which stipulates that the headquarters of CAF be located in the same country as where the president resides, the organisation's first office was on 3, El Hadika Street, Garden City, Cairo.

Further to the main objective of ensuring a responsible Secretariat; his proposal was also the first effort for equitable distribution of duties, powers and benefits in the Confederation.

Ydnekatchew hoped new members Ghana and Tunisia would support this logical proposal, but for reasons of election politics, they preferred not to challenge the status quo.

A watershed gathering of this young confederation took place on January 23 and 24 1963 when Moustafa succeeded in getting the Egyptian government to bankroll the accommodation and travel expenses of visiting delegates.

Although the protracted battle on the issue of Apartheid had caused numerous disagreements in successive FIFA Congresses, none came near to a breaking point as the scheme encouraged by Sir Stanley Rous to establish a separate FIFA recognized regional Southern African Confederation, consisting mainly of South Africa, Rhodesia, Mauritius, Madagascar, Botswana and Malawi, with the obvious intent of facilitating the unchallenged readmission of Apartheid.

[5] African Football leaders came across copies of the confidential communications on the issue and made it clear to Sir Stanley during an informal discussion just before the opening of the 1966 Congress in London, that all African Associations would walk out of the Conference Hall if FIFA was not to withdraw its unofficial support to the divisive establishment of two independent Confederations in one continent.

In a compromise last minute arrangement Sir Stanley retreated, avoiding the eminent walkout by all African Associations from this Congress and the ensuing publicity it would have provoked.

This was a point in time when FIFA-CAF relations were strained to the limit, subsequent to the already declared African boycott of the 1966 FIFA World Cup hosted by England, refusing to share a single place with Asia.

General Moustafa was not present and so lost his position to Dr. Abdel Halim, who was voted unanimously after Dr. Ahmad Bakr of Egypt withdrew his own candidature.

Thus, during the seventh edition of the Nations Cup in the Sudan 1970, twenty member associations signed a petition demanding the establishment of a special committee for thorough review and amendment of the statutes.

Ydnekatchew Tessema was again elected chairman of this committee which included, Dr. Maouche (Algeria), Hamici (Democratic Republic of the Congo), Karrar (Sudan), Matthia (Togo), Mwade Wade (Senegal), and Chief Mensah (Ghana).

A proposal by Senegal for an ad hoc committee to prepare a technical development programme that will help raise the standard of refereeing on the continent was approved.

Considering the noticeable interference by some elements from within and outside of the continent, who were striving to exploit this misunderstanding to further divide and weaken the Confederation, and thereby disrupt the necessary unity for the then nearly accomplished tasks of expelling Apartheid South Africa from FIFA, and achieving Africa's rightful places in the global body, Ydnekatchew Tessema, preferred not to publicize the works of the ad hoc committee.

The assembly refused to discuss the amendments in detail and again empowered Ydnekatchew to preside over a new sub-committee entrusted with double checking the recommended changes.

This is why he is still viewed by connoisseurs of the Confederation's history, as the most successful African football leader; who had resolved all early detective problems and directed total focus towards the development of the game, not only for his era, but also, for the future of the continent's most popular sport.

Yidnekatchew had on several occasions since the beginning of unseen before revenue from live TV broadcast of the Cup of Nations, in Libya in 1982, declared, "CAF'S budget is healthy, and its receipts exceed its expenses every year", but, he had never said "C.A.F.

Eight months after 1970 FIFA World Cup in Mexico, Tessema explained the nature of his illness to member associations of the African Football Confederation, and successfully appealed to them to vote for Omar Sey of Gambia in his place, in the 1988 elections; which he very well knew would be after his life.

However, Ydnekatchew was not prepared to give-up, easy; when the newly appointed Minister, visited Addis Ababa for a meeting of the Organization of African Unity, in June 1987, he invited him home and made one final effort to convince him to resign from his government position and run for the presidency of the Confederation.

Omar did not offend his ailing colleague with an outright no, he said he would try, but also explained the difficulty and possible implications of submitting a resignation to his Head of State.

[9] Only days before he died, he invited the First Vice President Dr. Halim, and the Secretary General Moustafa Fahmy, to Addis Ababa, and repeated to both of them that Issa was now the most appropriate choice for the job.

Though in vain, he also pleaded with veteran Dr. Halim, to abandon his ambition to the presidency and take the responsibility of ensuring elections, free of external influences.

In 2007, CAF celebrated its 50-year anniversary through organising a series of festivals in Egypt, Sudan, Ethiopia and South Africa so as to pay tribute to the four founding members.

The match was played on February 18 between Al Ahly (Egypt) and Étoile Sportive du Sahel (Tunisia) in Addis Ababa Stadium.