{"id":4378,"date":"2025-08-18T08:38:39","date_gmt":"2025-08-18T07:38:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/empowersmag.com\/empowersmagwp\/?p=4378"},"modified":"2025-08-18T09:01:15","modified_gmt":"2025-08-18T08:01:15","slug":"the-good-that-caf-did-part-two","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/empowersmag.com\/empowersmagwp\/2025\/08\/18\/the-good-that-caf-did-part-two\/","title":{"rendered":"The Good that CAF Did (Part Two)<\/strong>"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By Satish Sekar \u00a9 Satish Sekar (August 15th<\/sup> 2025)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe evil that men do lives after them; The good is oft interred with their bones;\u201d[1]<\/strong><\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

A Great but Courageous Risk<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Just two days after the first Constitutional Assembly had taken place in Sudan the first Africa Cup of Nations began in Khartoum. It had been intended that the four founding members of the Conf\u00e9d\u00e9ration Africaine de Football (CAF) would contest this tournament, but only three teams would take part as Egypt, Ethiopia and Sudan would not compromise with Apartheid. South Africa would send an integrated team or they would not be allowed to play.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fred Fell, South Africa\u2019s representative informed CAF that the South African government would agree to a team of all whites or a team of blacks only. The others refused to accept the suggestion \u2013 a gross compromise with Apartheid.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The inaugural Africa Cup of Nations tournament was due to start just two days later. South Africa was suspended from the competition. It was a great risk, but a very courageous one as CAF could not know if the competition and CAF itself would survive with just three countries. At very short notice the tournament had to be reorganised rapidly with the three remaining teams \u2013 Egypt, Ethiopia and Sudan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The First AFCON and its First Stars<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was a very courageous decision \u2013 after all, this was the first Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) and there was next to no time to organise it, but ultimately its success would be judged on the pitch. Politics had clearly reared its ugly head \u2013 albeit principled \u2013 but the football had to convince on the pitch. This was representing African football on the world stage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It wasn\u2019t the first international competition in Africa \u2013 that honour belongs to East Africa\u2019s Gossage Cup, which took place for the first time in Nairobi between Kenya and Uganda in 1926 and it too faced problems over shameful racism and colonialism.[2]<\/a> CAF and the federations of Egypt, Ethiopia and Sudan in particular had no way of knowing if the tournament would succeed, especially without South Africa, but Apartheid was not an issue that could be compromised on even if it resulted in the death of CAF.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ethiopia reached the final with a walk over South Africa. Egypt and Sudan faced each other at Khartoum\u2019s Municipal Stadium. Zamalek\u2019s Raafat Attia Helmy[3]<\/a> had the hour of scoring the first goal in the history of the Africa Cup of Nations \u2013 a penalty after 21 minutes. Al-Merreikh\u2019s Bora\u00ee Ahmed El-Bashir \u2013 he died aged 80 in 2012 \u2013 scored Sudan\u2019s first goal in AFCON history after 58 minutes to equalise, but the star of the first AFCON, the late Al-Ittihad and Egypt legend Mohamed Diab Al-Attar, better known as Ad-Diba, scored the first winner in the tournament\u2019s history after 72 minutes on February 10th<\/sup> 1957.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Egypt had reached the final at the hosts\u2019 expense.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

AFCON\u2019s First Legend of Legends<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ad-Diba was AFCON\u2019s first great star \u2013 he shone brightly. He scored after 2 minutes \u2013 becoming the first person to score in an AFCON Final. He completed the first brace in the competition\u2019s history after 7 minutes and the first hat-trick after 68 minutes. There was no doubt who the star of the first AFCON was, but Ad-Diba was not finished. With a minute of normal time remaining, he scored his fourth. Not surprisingly, he was named the tournament’s Best Player.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ad-Diba remains the only man to score four in an AFCON Final. It was fitting in its way that the only time another player scored four in the final of AFCON it had required a replay and that was in Egypt in 1974. The late great Pierre Ndaye Mulamba \u2013 the Democratic Republic of Congo (then Zaire) icon scored all four of his team\u2019s goals in the 2-2 draw against Zambia and the 2-0 win in the replay. That was and will remain the only AFCON Final that had a replay.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Africa Cup of Nations had arrived three years before Europe\u2019s first championship and it had its first undoubted star in Mohamed Diab Al-Attar. It would prove to have longevity. Both CAF and the Africa Cup of Nations had survived the uncertain start. Their next test would be just two years later \u2013 the same one. Should CAF compromise, or should its principles triumph? 1959 would provide the definitive answer to that question.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

[1]<\/a> Part of Marc Antony\u2019s funeral oration for Julius C\u00e6sar in William Shakespeare\u2019s play Julius C\u00e6sar<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[2]<\/a> We will feature that competition and its importance soon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[3]<\/a> He broke through at Al-Ittihad in 1952, but was most successful at Zamalek, winning the Egyptian title in 1959-60, 1963-64 and 1964-65. He won four Egyptian Cups too. Attia died in a car crash in 1978 aged just 44-years-old. He played in two AFCONs, losing the second to Ethiopia in 1962.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Satish Sekar \u00a9 Satish Sekar (August 15th 2025) \u201cThe evil that men do lives after them; The good is oft interred with their bones;\u201d[1] A [\u2026]<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2497,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[16,14,4],"tags":[1229,88,1231,1225,570,1228,120,124,317,832,522,1230,254,337,1224,1226,1227,325,708],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/empowersmag.com\/empowersmagwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4378"}],"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=4378"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/empowersmag.com\/empowersmagwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4378\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4384,"href":"https:\/\/empowersmag.com\/empowersmagwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4378\/revisions\/4384"}],"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=4378"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/empowersmag.com\/empowersmagwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4378"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/empowersmag.com\/empowersmagwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4378"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}