Patrice Motsepe: African football set for enormous financial windfall from AFCON scheduling changes

Motsepe shocked the African football community when he announced that from 2028, AFCON will no longer be a biennial tournament, aligning instead with the FIFA international calendar. 

As CAF’s biggest revenue generator, a two-year AFCON cycle made financial sense, but Motsepe believes the organisation now stands to gain even more.

"We're gonna make more money with this new dispensation than we ever could have made with AFCON every two years. It's unfair on the African players that they are caught up in their fights with their coaches and with their clubs because they have to come back to us in Africa,” Motsepe said. 

“My primary obligation is African football, my number one duty is to make sure that African football grows and succeeds and it's world class."

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The release of players by European clubs—particularly during the middle of the season—has been the biggest challenge facing AFCON every two years.

This ongoing tension led to the decision taken by the CAF Executive Committee in Rabat. 

Motsepe says a compromise had to be reached for the good of African football.

"The problem I have now is I don't have my African players here, I have them every two years. So, in terms of this new arrangement, this new dispensation, this new agreement, every year I'm gonna have a competition in Africa,” he explained. 

“We are gonna have a competition in Africa involving 54 nations and with the best African players from Africa in Europe and all over the world, coming here to play. When we make decisions, our number one focus is what's in the interest of African football. 

“The second issue is we've got a duty to the players. I mean Eto'o [Samuel] said in the meeting today 'President, I am so thankful, I am so so thankful' and one of the Exco members said, 'Please, take him to the press conference with you' because they know how frustrating it is for the players. 

“When your club says to you 'We don't want you to go to Africa, we need you' and they are correct, they need them for the competition but I also need them for their national team, for the country. 

“So, it's unfair for us to put ourselves in the middle of the fights that we have, we are solving this in the first instance for us in Africa, in the second instance for our players, in the third instance, we are gonna get so much more money than what happened having the AFCON every two years."