Hayatou spoke when he paid courtesy call to the Lagos State Governor, Mr. Babatunde Fashola. He said mismanagement in football associations has resulted in a situation where associations keep changing after six months or a year thus depriving CAF the opportunity for partnership on a long term basis.
“So one of the key issues of African football is to try to strengthen the football associations and to avoid them facing such problems that will help us to achieve what you are saying but that would not mean that we cannot do anything at this point. You are already trying to do something and that would be a big help to go for that achievement”, he maintained.
The CAF president who said he would want the governor to be his guests at the GLO CAF awards holding on Thursday thanked the governor for what he has been doing for football in Nigeria as well as Africa.
While commending Nigeria in the management of associations, he said that the positive involvement of the country’s authority in the management of football has been bearing good fruits such that the nation has won the African Nations Cup, qualified for the 2014 World Cup, won the U-17 World Cup and also qualified for CHAN.
In his remarks the governor said that with the right economic rewards, African players would love to play on African soil adding that the only reason why Samuel Etoo is playing in Chelsea and so many of the Cameroonian players and Mikel Obi is the economic reason.
“ The football is not different, it bounces the same way and they are playing with gloves now because it is very cold, they would rather play here if we can create the economy here. That is for me the new partnership that you and I and all football administrators must address to use sports as a tool for global harmony, as a tool for economic emancipation”, he explained.
He also charged the football chief to leverage on the successes already recorded by the African Continent in World football by attracting more international technical support for the development of African football leagues.
