By Satish Sekar \u00a9 Satish Sekar (December 31st 2020)<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Confederation of African Football (CAF) knew that the collapse of its deal with Sports Lagard\u00e8re was bound to have repercussions and it did. Lagard\u00e8re felt wronged and wanted compensation \u2013 Supersport too. That resulted in a void in the coverage of CAF tournaments in Africa.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The lack of coverage affected sponsors and advertisers and fans as well. The investments of the sponsors and advertisers would not reach the football market without coverage. It was an economic disaster for CAF with or without Lagard\u00e8re and it shows no sign of resolution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Within a few months a bad situation became even worse. A virus first mentioned in Wuhan, China, the Coronavirus developed into a Pandemic. It was badly handled by World leaders, resulting in lockdowns, denial and further waves. Several months later, it is in its Second Wave \u2013 another may follow. Sadly, it is far from the only Pandemic to have been handled badly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
At a time when African fans already supported European clubs more than their local teams, it was made harder to follow African teams \u2013 even in the biggest competitions. To make it worse, the Pandemic shows no signs of ending any time in the foreseeable future.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Just over a century earlier another Pandemic \u2013 the Spanish Flu Pandemic \u2013 was handled similarly by governments. Its dangers were denied at a time they were known about. Mishandling of that Pandemic in its early stages resulted in Second and Third Waves of it. Sadly, this Pandemic is proving that little or nothing has been learned from history.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Most of the world is suffering the Second Wave of COVID-19 and lockdowns are occurring or imminent again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Football is far from immune. Competitions are taking place under various guidelines, but crowds are largely absent. Consequently, everyone interested in football depends on media to follow their teams. And reaching targeted audiences was affected too without fan attendance and media coverage. What were sponsors and advertisers getting for their money?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
While CAF bears some responsibility for the fiasco of the Agreement with Lagard\u00e8re \u2013 it should have known about competitive tendering requirements \u2013 that applies to those who signed the deal and those who failed to exercise due care and diligence too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
If CAF must shoulder blame for this, surely that lies at the door of those who negotiated the deal, accepted it and signed it. What was Ahmad Ahmad\u2019s administration supposed to do about this? After all he received the bathwater not the baby on this and the water was rank too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The environment is new but television rights may be a good earner in the era of socially distanced football. It\u2019s an ugly new world and football is far from immune from its effects.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But there\u2019s far more to the rise and fall of Ahmad Ahmad than the Lagard\u00e8re deal \u2013 in fact it wasn\u2019t mentioned.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But given the findings of the Egyptian Economic Courts, why hasn\u2019t FIFA\u2019s Ethics Committee investigated it, especially as FIFA President Gianni Infantino was said to have wanted Issa Hayatou\u2019s long reign at CAF ended in 2017?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As Marcus Tullius Cicero said over 2000 years ago, \u2018qui benefacit amin\u00e6 (who benefits the most)?\u2019 It hasn\u2019t aged.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By Satish Sekar \u00a9 Satish Sekar (December 31st 2020) Blame The Confederation of African Football (CAF) knew that the collapse of its deal with Sports Lagard\u00e8re [\u2026]<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2497,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[16,14],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/empowersmag.com\/empowersmagwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2559"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/empowersmag.com\/empowersmagwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/empowersmag.com\/empowersmagwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/empowersmag.com\/empowersmagwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/empowersmag.com\/empowersmagwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2559"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/empowersmag.com\/empowersmagwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2559\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2560,"href":"https:\/\/empowersmag.com\/empowersmagwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2559\/revisions\/2560"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/empowersmag.com\/empowersmagwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2497"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/empowersmag.com\/empowersmagwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2559"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/empowersmag.com\/empowersmagwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2559"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/empowersmag.com\/empowersmagwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2559"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}