THE 2015 Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) final feast is on tonight with probably the best teams of the entire three-week football extravaganza-Ivory Coast and Ghana- battling for the top prize.?Ivory Coast and Ghana have put up the most consistent series of matches where they kept improving and playing better in each AFCON tie.
However, I will not dwell on that for today but may the best team win in this repeat of the 1992 final where Ivory Coast emerged eventual winners after heart-breaking penalty shoot-outs.?My focus is on some of the disciplinary verdicts passed by the Confederation of African Football (CAF) in the past week.?AFCON hosts, Equatorial Guinea were fined $100,000 on Friday for the conduct of their fans in the violence-strewn semi-final loss to Ghana.
This was the second time within the week that Equatorial Guinea were penalised by CAF for the misconduct of Nzalang Nacional supporters.?In the earlier incident, CAF fined the 2015 hosts a meagre $5,000 after their fans invaded the pitch following Equatorial Guinea’s quarter-final shock win over Tunisia in Bata.
On Thursday, the hosts’ supporters were at it again, this time attacking Ghanaian officials and fans with an assortment of missiles in Malabo as the home team was losing to the Black Stars in the semi-finals.
The Ghanaians were attacked as they celebrated by the angry home fans and fled onto the playing area for sanctuary.?These ugly scenes, which left at least 36 people injured, were shown on television across Africa and everybody saw how unsafe it was for the Ghanaians.?When most football followers thought Equatorial Guinea was even flirting with a ban, CAF reacted rather in a shocking way by only asking the hosts to pay a $100,000 fine and that their next game will be played behind closed doors.
However, this was not going to be as a ‘lenient’ CAF opted to allow the Nzalang Nacional fans to watch last night’s third-place play-off between Equatorial Guinea and DR Congo after suspending the punishment.
On the other hand, CAF came down heavily on initial 2015 AFCON hosts, Morocco who pulled out from staging the tournament due to the Ebola virus epidemic fears.
Morocco was banned from taking part in the next two AFCON tournaments – 2017 and 2019.
They were also ordered to pay compensation of over $9 million for the losses suffered by CAF.?CAF also fined Morocco an extra $1 million for pulling out of hosting this year’s competition which saw Equatorial Guinea stepping in at the last minute.
I believe Morocco had a genuine case when pulling out especially that the matter at hand involved the health of millions of people.?While the Moroccans deserved some form of punishment but banning them for two AFCONs is just too extreme.?Then you look at Equatorial Guinea, who only got what I can call a slap on the wrist – $100,000- for the violent conduct of their supporters which left 36 people injured.?Surely, where is fairness here??Is CAF playing double standards or that is the correct way of handling such matters?
Whatever the case, Equatorial Guinea will enter the hall of shame as AFCON hosts due to the violent conduct of their fans.?I think those ugly scenes to some extent never shamed African football but the hosts.?What a poor end to an otherwise exhilarating AFCON finals.
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