When Patrice Motsepe recently announced in Morocco’s capital Rabat that the Africa Cup of Nations would only take place every four years from 2028, quite a few of the listeners thought they had heard it wrong. What the president of the African Football Confederation CAF had said amounted to a kind of revolution – or capitulation, as the case may be.
It was in the spring of 2020 when the president of the world football association FIFA, Gianni Infantino, called for the Africa Cup to only be held every four years. Otherwise it would no longer fit into the global football calendar.
“There is no such thing as a free lunch.”
The South African Motsepe – elected to office at the CAF a year later – vehemently objected. African football has traditionally been financed primarily from the revenues of its most important competition. An Africa Cup every two years – that is something like cultural heritage on the continent.
So now the boss is backing down. Critics had already speculated in 2021 that Motsepe would at some point have to repay the support he received from Infantino when he was elected. “As a man who has been in politics and business for decades, Motsepe knows all too well that there is no such thing as a free lunch,” South African daily The Sowetan wrote at the time.
There were four candidates for the CAF presidential post in 2021. The other candidates withdrew their applications after Infantino promised them other roles in the world football association.
So now it seems to have been payday for the 63-year-old Motsepe. He didn’t seek out the world of football officials to get rich. He was like that before. In 2008, he became the first black African to be listed on the Forbes list of the world’s richest people. His fortune, which he has made in the world of mining, is estimated at around three billion euros.
Motsepe is making a fortune in the mining business
Motsepe was born in 1962 in a commune in Johannesburg. While he was still in school, he began working in his father’s general store. He later studied law and joined a law firm specializing in mining law. He entered the mining business in the 1990s and made a fortune there.
His tactic: He acquired ruinous mines and rigorously reduced costs. Today his company, African Rainbow Minerals, owns gold, platinum, nickel, coal and iron mines. At the same time, he established close ties to South Africa’s political elite. His sister Tshepo is married to President Cyril Ramaphosa.
He became actively involved in football in 2003: Since then he has owned the South African premier league club Mamelodi Sundowns. The “Brazilians”, as they are called because of their yellow, blue and green uniforms, which are reminiscent of the appearance of the record world champions, have since won the South African championship twelve times. The biggest triumph came in 2016 when the club won the African Champions League.
Motsepe’s step into association work was ultimately only logical. His intensive collaboration with Infantino’s FIFA certainly did not harm the African football world from a financial perspective. New lucrative TV contracts and the placement of powerful sponsors were the bargaining chip that the world association was able to offer.
The FIFA Club World Cup took place in the summer of 2025
In return, Motsepe and his people obviously had to give up ideal African interests. The Africa Cup was recently moved back and forth in the annual calendar – from winter to summer and vice versa.
Most recently, the current tournament in Morocco had to be moved from the summer months to the Christmas period because the bloated FIFA Club World Cup, in which Motsepe’s Mamelodi Sundowns also took part, took up the summer date. For the sake of the European clubs, the release period for players was shortened to six days in December.
“African football should not once again have to bow to demands from elsewhere,” recently wrote Gérard Dreyfus, a former sports editor at Radio France who covered African football for several years.
“It is an attempt to reduce the visibility of African football, to make it more discreet, docile and compatible with European agendas and commercial interests,” Dreyfus continued. Others also criticized. “This is not right. There must be respect for Africa,” said Tom Saintfiet, Mali’s Belgian coach, at the ongoing tournament.
However, Motsepe may also run into difficulties if he goes it alone. A change to the hosting of the Africa Cup of Nations was neither proposed nor put to a vote at the recent CAF general meeting in Kinshasa. However, according to the statutes, this would have been necessary. The world association commented on Motsepe’s initiative: “Africa has been and remains a top priority for FIFA.”
