Online Reporter
Petros Kausiyo
Zimpapers Sports Hub
CONFEDERATION of African Football president Patrice Motsepe is set to return to Harare for his second visit to Zimbabwe in just over a month, with the continental body’s supremo headlining the guest list for the COSAFA elective Congress.
Motsepe is expected to fly into Harare on Sunday morning, shortly before the start of the COSAFA annual meeting whose highlight is the election of a new executive committee.
The South African business mogul was in Harare last month for the finals of the CAF African Schools Football Championships, a legacy tournament bankrolled by the Motsepe Foundation and competed for by Under-15 Boys and Girls on the continent.
He watched both the Girls’ and Boys’ finals at Norton’s Ngoni stadium.
Motsepe has been on whirlwind tours around the continent in his quest to see the growth and modernisation of African football.
Earlier this week, he was in Nairobi, Kenya, for the Africa Forward Summit in Nairobi, Kenya, where French President Emmanuel Macron was the high-profile guest.
On Sunday, Motsepe and a number of football officials from CAF, FIFA and other zones will witness proceedings at the COSAFA elective assembly. FIFA officials Gelson Fernandes and Solomon Mudege are also among the guests expected to observe the indaba.
Fernandes serves as the Deputy Chief Member Associations Officer and Director for Africa at FIFA.
The former Manchester City midfielder and Zimbabwean Mudege, who is the FIFA Head of Development Programmes in Africa, have been instrumental in orchestrating the growth of the game on the continent, working closely with CAF, member associations and zonal bodies like COSAFA.
The duo is mostly remembered for working round the clock in the normalisation of Zimbabwe’s football after the country’s suspension by FIFA from February 2022- June 2023.
They will be happy to see the strides that the ZIFA leadership have made since their January 2025 election, which followed the lifting of the FIFA suspension and was preceded by another year under a Normalisation Committee.
COSAFA, a key bloc in the CAF set-up and, in fact, the largest of the African football zones with 14 members, will officially have a new president. The Southern African body will have Botswana’s Oabile Tariq Babitseng taking over from Angolan Artur de Almeida e Silva.
Babitseng will be deputised by Alfred Randriamanampisoa of Madagascar, with both men coming in unopposed.
Interestingly for Zimbabwe is the fact that apart from being the host, ZIFA president Nqobile Magwizi is among five candidates vying for the four executive committee member’s posts that are up for grabs.
Magwizi, who has been busy the last two months, during which he has been on a charm offensive, engaging with fellow football leaders in Africa and those in other confederations to secure some collaborations, is confident he will garner enough votes to be part of the cast that will lead COSAFA. For the ZIFA boss to have his association winning the confidence of COSAFA to hold an indaba of the magnitude of Sunday’s elective congress is a milestone.
“It is humbling for ZIFA and for every Zimbabwean football stakeholder for us to be accorded the opportunity to host this huge COSAFA Congress for the first time in the history of our game.
“We are also privileged to be welcoming the CAF President Dr Patrice Motsepe, all the presidents of the Southern African football associations, the FIFA and CAF officials and those joining us from other confederations.
“I am happy and feel very encouraged by the spirit and the collective desire that I have seen in COSAFA to grow football in the region, and I believe we have that collective capacity to make this region proud and make it a leader in the development of football,’’ Magwizi said.
Zambian Brenda Kunda was elected unopposed for the reserved women’s seat.
But there is no doubting that, apart from ZIFA hosting the COSAFA indaba on Sunday, the spotlight will also fall on Magwizi as he battles to win his second football election in 16 months.
The unassuming ZIFA boss faces the challenges of Lesotho’s Lijane Nthunya, Robert Shimooshili of Namibia, South African Linda Zwane and Peter Simelane of Eswatini.
Whatever the outcome of the elections, COSAFA are expected to remain stronger and united.
COSAFA, with their enterprising executive director Sue Destombes at the helm of the secretariat, have religiously held competitions for age group teams for boys and girls and the senior men and women every year, have been the most active of the CAF Zones for more than a decade.
They were the only zone to organise competitions during the forgettable era of the Covid-19 pandemic.
CAF to deal with AFCON deficiencies
Meanwhile, Motsepe has indicated that CAF are addressing the “deficiencies” which contributed to the chaotic finale of the 2025 Africa Cup of Nations in Morocco.
Senegal were crowned winners on the night, following a 1-0 victory after extra-time, but were stripped of the title by a CAF appeal board in March, with the trophy instead handed to the hosts. The sanction was applied because the West Africans walked off the pitch in protest after Morocco were awarded a penalty following a VAR review in second-half injury-time, when the game was goalless.
With stadium security also clashing with fans and Morocco accused of unsportsmanlike conduct over so-called “towelgate” — a series of incidents, which saw players and ballboys moving the Senegal goalkeeper’s towel — Motsepe says African football’s governing body has taken action.
“We’ve done good work in terms of building the confidence and the trust amongst the football community of our referees and of our VAR,” he told BBC Sport Africa.
“But there are still these challenges, and we’ve recognised what the deficiencies were that led to the unfortunate incidents we had in Morocco.
“We’ve introduced new laws, new regulations which will ensure that doesn’t happen again.” He also explained CAF’s decision to hand DR Congo referee Jean-Jacques Ndala the responsibility to handle the Champions League final between South Africa’s Mamelodi Sundowns and Morocco’s AS FAR.
“After the (AFCON) final in Morocco, the chairman of the referees committee came to the executive committee, and they gave a thorough report of his (Ndala’s) performance, and they assessed how he refereed the match in accordance with the global best practises of refereeing,” Motsepe explained.
“The referee’s committee is independent. We don’t get involved and should not get involved in identifying who should ref at which match.
“I’ve been told that both the football clubs have expressed their reservations, but we have to respect the decisions that are taken by this independent body.
“The very specific thing is to continue training our referees. Some of our referees are as good as the best in the world.”
