Johannesburg- The South African Football Association (Safa) leadership is of the view that hosting a Fifa Soccer World Cup every two years will benefit Africa and it could scupper years of colonial drawbacks in the continent.
SAFA president Danny Jordaan told Sunday World that the association supported top coach Arsene Wenger and Saudi Arabia’s proposal of having a FIFA World Cup every two instead of the current four-year cycle whose qualification is very difficult and arduous.
“The point is that the establishment of the current system of World Cup qualification was established during the period of colonial rule and now colonialism is long gone and countries in the continent have sovereign independence and yet the pattern is still the same and alive. “It’s something that the executive of CAF is talking about and it will also be on our SAFA agenda at the end of the month,” said Jordaan.
“Africa is at a disadvantage in terms of numbers. There’s also the question of money – Europe got $3.5-billion [R50-billion] from the last World Cup. Africa got about $150-million [R2-billion] and therefore Europe has more money to put into development. Africa does not have that kind of privilege. Is Africa benefiting in the current system in terms of number of teams, or revenue from the World Cup, or when it comes to hosting? About 80% of the World Cups were hosted in Europe. In almost 100 years since after the first tournament in 1930, Germany have played in the World Cup 18 times and France 15 times.
In Africa, Cameroon have played in the highest number of World Cups (seven times) and Nigeria on five occasions. SA and Egypt both three times,” Jordaan said.
“The other question is why is it that no African team has ever reached the semi-finals or played in the finals or won the World Cup? In the Olympics Games, it is equal representation and Europe does not dominate. The recent Olympics were won by Brazil and other past winners are Cameroon, Argentina and Nigeria and this is the second-most important football competition. How come other Africans are winning the Olympics and never the World Cup? It is about representation because they always have far more teams than other continents in the World Cup,” said Jordaan.
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