CAF Banning of Togo, Was it The Right Decision?

Pin It Now! On the 30th of January, 2010 CAF pronounced the Togolese national team banned for the next 2 editions of the Nations’ Cup tournament and also fined them $50,000 for withdrawing from this year’s edition in Angola. They based their reasoning on the premise that Togo’s government interfered with football administration by asking the team to come back home.
Did I just hear you say “good”? Or did I hear you say CAF is exercising her authority? Well, we should ask ourselves what led to the withdrawal of the Togolese team from the tournament before taking sides with the football governing body. For those of you who may not have known what happened, the Togolese national team was attacked by Angolan rebels in Cabinda on the 8th of January on their way from Congo to take part in the tournament; the team’s assistant coach and the spokesman were killed by the random bullets fired at them by the rebels, and the team’s number one goal keeper was in coma for days and was rushed to a South African hospital where he underwent surgery. Having gone through a traumatizing experience and having lost two members of the team with some others injured the government felt the players would not be in their best state of mind to continue with the tournament (though the players indicated interest to continue).
Having known what led to the decision to withdraw, the question we should now ask is was CAF right in their decision to ban Togo from the next 2 editions? I certainly do not think so. We are all people with emotions; Africans have a tradition of being their brothers’ keepers. How would it have looked if after these guys lost their assistant coach and their spokesman just two days to their opening match they went ahead to play in the tournament with some of their key players carrying bullet wounds? The African family system is so closely knit that you even discover some of those players may be from the same extended family. They were certainly not in their best psychological state to participate.
Sometimes we look for flimsy excuses to justify our wrongs. The act of bringing in the name of government to defend their action was wrong on the side of CAF. They may have forgotten that these players came from a country first before they became footballers and that their government owed them the responsibility to protect them and ensure their safety both in and out of the country. So the government did not do badly by recalling their players to ensure they were medically attended to. Article 78 which was invoked was drafted by human beings and any constitution that does not have a provision for the welfare of its citizenry is to the best a bad one.

CAF Banning of Togo, Was it The Right Decision?