We can fight hard to protect Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) from its many detractors, but the truth is that there are some issues (read as sad facts) that the tournament cannot run away from, hence failing terribly in the test of a major tournament.
The African Cup of Nations is ongoing in Morocco and there is already its main and recurring feature: empty stadiums, except when the home team is playing. Morocco vs Comoros was filled to the rafters, no doubt, and it was expected. Morocco are the hosts, and they are using the AFCON in preparation for a World Cup that they will host jointly with the Iberian duo: Spain and Portugal.
Therefore, Morocco versus Comoros is not the game to measure or gauge the mood or pedigree of the tournament. It is misleading.
Match day two is where you want to see how big the AFCON is, or claims to be, or how small it is. Mali vs Zambia was played in an empty stadium. As if that is not enough of a statement, South Africa vs Angola was also played in front of a countable number of fans. One would think that these are teams playing behind closed doors following a sanction or punishment. No! There were just no fans to attend these games.
When the average number of travelling fans for a non-hosting team is a handful, we have to be realistic and ask the hard questions while also admitting hard facts.
How then do you make a claim that the AFCON is a major or big tournament if nearly 90% of the games are played in empty stadia, without fans? And it didn’t start with this AFCON. This has been the trend, a definitive marker.
The African Union (AU) and its member states, and the Confederation of African Football, have done very little or almost nothing to solve this ‘fanless tournament’ crisis. For starters, the borders in African countries are closed, and this is where the AU should come in, agree to open borders temporarily during the one month of the tournament to enable free movement and travel during the prestigious tournament. They don’t. The borders remain closed.
We can also talk about economic disparity between Africa and Europe, and how it is more difficult to travel between countries in Africa than in Europe. The transport system and infrastructure is not only complex but also expensive to procure the services. However, nearly 80 years after independence, self-governance and self-rule, there are some things we should stop complaining about. Things are not supposed to be as bad as they were in the 20th century or even worse. There should be improvement.
CAF has not lobbied this case enough to the AU. We expect CAF to work and cooperate with the political systems of the continent to solve such issues. They don’t. CAF prefers to work with FIFA and UEFA to meet the Eurocentric standardisation of football organisations instead of solving the most basic things about football in Africa, such as fans’ attendance at the stadium. The logistics are largely their responsibility, but they ignore it. Before the AFCON kicked off, CAF made several resolutions, but none of them touched on fans and stadium attendance.
How can we beat the allegations when Africa’s most prestigious and biggest football bonanza is marred with low fans’ attendance in every edition? We can lie to ourselves, but so long as there are no fans in the stadium, there will always be suspicion on the pedigree.
In August, Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania hosted CHAN, which is a low-tier tournament for Africans who play in domestic leagues. Often, it is a preparation tournament for AFCON by the hosting country, where CAF expects to see how much they can do to pull off a greater AFCON experience by hosting CHAN. The ’empty stadium’ crisis was notable in Tanzania (where even the home team could not attract crowds to their games) and Uganda.
Kenya, on the other hand, had full stadium attendance at their home games, so much so that CAF had to punish them for stadium misconduct and crowd trouble. In some games, Kenya was forced to play with half capacity in the stadium after CAF decided to cut down the number of fans due to crowd trouble.
It should be noted that Kenyans significantly attended games hosted in Nyayo and Kasarani stadia even if the Harambee Stars (home team) were not in action. It has been said that populist politicians hijacked the tickets, buying them in hundreds and thousands and gifting them to their supporters, who then thronged the games. These are allegations that cannot be proven. However, what remains clear is that CHAN games in Nairobi had massive fan attendance compared to the desolate state in Tanzania and Uganda. It is also clear that Kenya gave a true picture of what a big and major tournament needs to look like in terms of fan culture and attendance.
Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania will host the African Cup of Nations in 2027 and the CHAN picture has already foreshadowed the fan culture. It is simple, CAF, AU and the hosting nation must find ways of ensuring that fans attend and experience the tournament in sizeable numbers for AFCON to ever be taken seriously in the table of major tournaments.
Otieno Otieno is a scholar of Literature and Cultural Studies, and Luo Popular Music, and a fan of Arsenal. This post was taken from his Facebook page.
