FIFA president Gianni Infantino (left) and CAF President Patrice Motsepe. Motsepe's controversial endorsement of Infantino for FIFA president raises questions about loyalty and governance in African football. Ziyad Motala critiques the implications of such political alliances and the need for accountability in leadership.
There are apologies that reveal contrition, and there are apologies that merely expire.
In January 2020, Patrice Motsepe sat at a dinner in Davos with Donald Trump and decided, with the serene confidence that sometimes accompanies several billion dollars, that he had been appointed spokesman for a continent. “Africa loves America,” he told Trump. “Africa loves you.”
This was not an expression of affection for some unknown political quantity whose character would reveal itself only later. By then Trump had spent years peddling the racist birther fiction that America's first Black president was not really American. He had been reported to have described African nations and Haiti as “shithole countries”. He had imposed a travel ban principally targeting several Muslim-majority countries and presided over a border policy that tore thousands of children from their parents. The world had heard the recording in which he spoke about women with a vulgarity that would embarrass a drunken adolescent. Only weeks before Motsepe's declaration of continental affection, Trump had been impeached by the United States House of Representatives for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress.
