As CAF prepares to hold its elections, and with Motsepe almost guaranteed another dance in office, the South African billionaire is about to dangle an irresistible carrot.
This week, Motsepe, addressing guests during the 2024 CAF Executive Programme Launch of CAF and University of Cape Town Partnership in Cape Town, said he would open the purse and reward football association presidents handsomely.
At the moment, the Botswana Football Association (BFA) president, Maclean Letshwiti ,and his counterparts across Africa earn around P260, 000 annually, which translates to just above P1million during their four-year term. But that is set for a huge bump as Motsepe has promised a 150% hike, a proposal that is expected to sail through when CAF holds its general assembly in the Democratic Republic of Congo next month.
The lure of money could now be too much to resist for the continent’s football leaders. The new package will see each association president going home with a cool $200, 000 at the end of their four-year term. This is in addition to sitting allowances for CAF meetings and executive committee members.
In advancing the proposal, Motsepe said some FA leaders are forced to run the association from their pockets.
“You will see that what we are doing now as we are going to the national general assembly, we are dealing with something that’s complex but the time requires that.
Some of your presidents have no resources, they’ve got nothing and they’ve got to run the member associations out of their pockets,” Motsepe said.
“So, we have decided we are gonna make a token contribution to every president in every member association. We cannot pay them enough and the intention was to pay them but a token of gratitude and sacrifice,” Motsepe added. FA secretary-generals or chief executive officers are also in line for a windfall as Motsepe also promises to line their pockets.
“But there’s part of the plan as well, the people who run the office. The people who are gonna wake up in the morning, look at the office, run the management and that’s why what we are doing here is critically, critically important,” he said. “These are the things they say ‘President, we shouldn’t be talking about them’, we should be talking about them because the secretary-general has got a family, he’s got a wife and children or a husband and children.
“Again, just like the president we cannot pay them enough but we’ve got to get to a level where there is a contribution from that, that goes to the secretary-general. So, we’ve got to look at those things and make sure that we pay our people.”
Motsepe’s tenure has been game-changing, with eye-catching introductions across, including the CAF schools league, the Super League as well as throwing cash across most competitions. Only last month, clubs competing in the CAF Champions League received a cash injection of $50, 000 each.
Under Motsepe, CAF is expected to break even for the first time in years, when the next year’s general assembly is held. When Motsepe took over in 2021, the deficit was around $40million but according to CAF secretary-general, Veron Mosengo-Omba that has been whittled down to $12million.
Motsepe has not hesitated to clean a house that had previously been in the wrong reasons amid concerns of deep-seated corruption under the late long serving leader, Issa Hayatou.
“I think we will present a figure to the CAF congress of less than $12million. For the next fiscal year, the debt will be zero,” Mosengo-Omba told BBC Sport recently.
With such a growing profile in his first major football administration job outside South Africa, Motsepe is almost guaranteed more time in office. But questions will remain if the mining magnate should have channelled more money to the associations than to individual presidents. Malawi FA president has already pledged to utilise the money he will receive from CAF for development.
However, it would not be a uniform approach as the gratuity could turn out to be a disruptor, fuelling greediness and creating fiefdoms within member associations. With being an association president coming with comparatively handsome returns, focus could now shift to jostling for personal gain at the expense of the development of football.
