Politics overshadow African championship final

Al Ahly militants

By James M. Dorsey

Next week’s African Championship League final between crowned Cairo club Al Ahly SC and Tunisian title defender Esperance Sportieve de Tunis is as much a battle of the titans as it is a struggle for the future of Egypt.

At stake in the November 4 match in the Mediterranean port city of Alexandria's Borg El-Arab Stadium, the first leg of the finals, is not only the African championship title but also a gamut of highly political issues, including the need for reform of law enforcement; the role of police and security forces in ensuring security in stadiums; the relationship between the club, its players and its fans; the right of fans to attend matches; and the campaign to remove associates of ousted Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak from soccer and eradicate corruption.

The match will be the first to be played by Al Ahly in front of its fans who have been banned from the few international and domestic matches that their club has played since professional soccer in Egypt was suspended eight months ago after 74 Al Ahly fans were killed in Port Said in a politically loaded brawl. The aftermath of the brawl looms large with militant, highly politicized, street battle-hardened fan groups known as ultras opposing a resumption of professional soccer as long as those responsible for the incident are not held accountable and the supporters’ political demands have not been met.

The last time Esperance played in Cairo in April 2011, two months after the ousting of president Hosni Mubarak, militant supporters of Al Ahly rival Al Zamalek SC stormed the pitch in what amounted to a reclaiming of the stadium from the security forces, Egypt’s most hated institution because of their role in enforcing the Mubarak regime’s repression. The storming marked the beginning of a post-revolt campaign by the militants, Egypt’s second largest civic group that played a key role in the protests that forced Mr. Mubarak to resign after 30 years in office, against the military and the law enforcement forces of the interior ministry. The campaign demanded the removal of Mubarak era officials and an end to corruption.

The militants known as ultras have booked a string of political victories in recent months in which they have attacked the offices of the Egyptian Football Association (EFA), Al Ahly’s training ground and the premises of media organizations. They have prevented a lifting of the ban on domestic soccer, ironically supported by their archenemy, the security forces who fear renewed clashes in the stadiums, the scene of years of often violent protests in the run-up to the demise of the Mubarak regime. A string of Mubarak era officials have been forced to resign or withdraw their candidacies for office and the Illegal Gains Authority has banned the chairman of Al Ahly, Hassan Hamdi, from travel and frozen his assets on suspicion of corruption.

The militants are further demanding justice for their 74 dead colleagues before professional soccer matches are resumed. They are frustrated with the slow progress in legal proceedings against 74 people, including nine mid-level security officers, accused of involvement in the Port Said brawl that is widely believed to have been an attempt that got out of hand to punish the militants for their role in the popular revolt and to cut them down to size. The militants also want the security forces to be deprived of their responsibility for security in the stadiums and want to see the initiation of a process of reform of the police force.

A leading member of the Muslim Brotherhood, Essam El-Erian, this month publicly backed the militants, saying he agreed that premier league soccer should remain suspended as long as the group that brought President Mohammed Morsi to office is battling its political opponents. "The Ultras were one of the most powerful forces to participate in last year's revolution. The Premier League will only resume after the final whistle is blown on this political match, which I hope ends in a draw," Mr. El-Erian said in a tweet. Mr. El-Erian was referring to divisions over the drafting of a new constitution and the judiciary’s failure to hold accountable officials responsible for the death of protesters during last year’s anti-Mubarak protests.

The interior ministry threw down a gauntlet last week when it announced that 15,000 Al Ahly fans would be allowed to attend the match against Esperance. The ministry’s decision came as players and fans held rival demonstrations for and against a lifting of the ban on soccer.

Players and fans clashed in early October in front of a Cairo hotel where Nigeria’s Sunshine Stars were staying in advance of a game against Al Ahli. The Al Ahli militants said they wanted to ensure that the Nigerian team made it safely to the match. Four police officers and 13 Al Ahly fans were injured last week in a clash between security forces and militants in front of a television station.

It was not immediately clear whether the militants would use the match against Esperance to press their demands or would boycott it in line with their opposition to a resumption of soccer. The militants exempt international matches from their rejection of a lifting of the ban on domestic premier league soccer. They have also agreed to the resumption in late November of matches in Egypt’s lower leagues.

James M. Dorsey is a senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore and the author of the blog, The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer.

African soccer executives oblivious to winds of change

Issa Hayatou: oblivious to change (Source: The Guardian)

By James M. Dorsey

African soccer executives, apparently oblivious to the winds of change that have already toppled three North African leaders, forced constitutional change and elections in Morocco and regularly spark protests in Algeria, this week reinforced structures that ensure that the continent’s governing football body remains a closed shop.

In a landslide vote, the Confederation of African Football (CAF) at its congress in the Seychelles adopted controversial amendments to the election laws for the body’s presidency presented by Algerian football federation president Mohamed Raouraoua.

The new rules accepted by 44 to 6 votes bar anyone outside the CAF executive committee, from running for the organisation’s presidency and effectively pave the way for the re-election of Issa Hayatou viewed by many as an example of the problems rocking world soccer. The rules disqualify potential challengers Danny Jordaan of South Africa and Jacques Anouma of the Ivory Coast.

Mr. Anouma, widely viewed as a strong challenger, had already announced his candidacy for next year’s CAF presidential election despite not being an elected member of the soccer body's executive committee. Mr. Anouma, a 58-year old accountant, enjoys the backing of the government of the Ivory Coast.

Keeping with world soccer tradition in which executives once elected stay in office for decades, Mr. Hayatou has been running African soccer since 1987. Critics view the new rules as a bid to keep him in power.

The new rule that amends CAF’s statutes stipulate that “all candidates for election to the presidency of CAF, in addition to necessary competence, must be or have been a member of the Executive Committee of CAF.”

The minority of opponents of the amendment have denounced it as out of line with the winds of change sweeping the continent and the north in particular. It contrasts starkly with efforts of the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) to clean house, eradicate corruption and ensure greater accountability and transparency as well as investigations into the worst corruption scandal in world soccer body FIFA's 108-year old history that have already forced the demise of several senior officials.

Ivory Coast sports minister Philippe Legre described the amendment as a “political ruse.” Senegal football federation president August Senghor charged that it was a setback for democracy if the new law was adopted, while former Cameroon international goalkeeper Joseph Antoine Bell said it was “misleading and a shame”.

FIFA was last year forced to backtrack on its appointment of Mr. Hayatou as chairman of the organising committee of the London Olympics soccer tournament because he was being investigated by an independent ethics commission of the International Olympic Committee for corruption. Mr. Hayatou had been accused in a BBC documentary of accepting kickbacks from sports marketing company ISL.

Mr. Hayatou was reprimanded by the IOC commission after he admitted receiving payments, which according to minutes of a 1998 CAF meeting and a 2011 certificate of the group’s finance director, were used to fund CAF 40th anniversary celebrations. The commission "noted that the documents produced by the person concerned, drawn up a long time after receipt of the funds, do not guarantee that the payments were indeed made into the CAF accounts. It considers that personally accepting a sum of money in these conditions constitutes a conflict of interests."

A recent independent auditor’s report of disgraced soccer official Mohammed Bin Hammam’s financial management of the AFC said that the Qatari national had used an AFC sundry account managed according to Price Waterhouse Cooper (PwC) as a personal account to pay in 2008 $4,950 for suits for Mr. Hayatou.

Mr. Bin Hammam has been suspended as FIFA vice president and AFC president on charges of having sought to bribe Caribbean soccer officials to secure their votes in his failed bid last year to challenge Sepp Blatter in FIFA presidential elections. Both FIFA and the AFC are investigating Mr. Bin Hammam.

James M. Dorsey is a senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore and author of the blog, The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer

Qatar and UAE hire fired AFC Bin Hammam associates

Mohammed Bin Hammam

By James M. Dorsey

Qatari and United Arab Emirates soccer bodies have provided employment for dismissed former Asian Football Confederation (AFC) senior staff implicated in an independent auditor’s report that questions the financial management of the group by its suspended president, Qatari national Mohammed Bin Hammam.

The fact that the Qatar and UAE soccer bodies agreed to hire personnel that AFC let go because of their relationship to Mr. Bin Hammam is likely to prompt further questions about his links to the Qatari royal  family and his potential involvement in Qatar’s controversial winning of the right to host the 2022 World Cup.

Mr. Bin Hammam is fighting charges of bribery and corruption and potentially allegations of money laundering, busting of US sanctions and tax evasion as a result of the auditor’s report as well as his ousting last year as vice president of world soccer body FIFA. Mr. Bin Hammam is at the center of a number of soccer corruption scandals that have rocked world soccer and FIFA in recent years.

Qatar has long downplayed Mr. Bin Hammam’s involvement in its World Cup bid despite his past close relationship to the Gulf state’s emir, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, and key role in world soccer.

Mr. Bin Hammam has appealed against an AFC decision earlier this month to suspend him as president for 30 days pending review of the report by PriceWaterhouse Cooper (PWC) that alleges financial mismanagement of AFC accounts to his own benefit as well as that of family, friends and soccer bodies across the globe.

The report also raises questions about Mr. Bin Hammam’s management of a $1 billion master rights agreement (MRA) with Singapore-based World Sport Group (WSG) and a $300 million broadcasting rights contract with the Qatar-owned Al Jazeera television network as well as his financial relationship to parties with possible vested interests in those deals.

The report provides the Kuala Lumpur-based AFC with the reasonable suspicion of a legal offence that it under Malaysian law is obliged to report to authorities. It also leaves the AFC with little choice but to launch a full-fledged investigation of its own.  The AFC, which has Malaysian nationals, including a member of a royal family on its executive committee, can extend Mr. Bin Hammam’s suspension for a maximum of another 20 days, ten of which must be used to prepare a case against him. It also has to report its finding to Malaysian authorities within that period.

The report says former AFC assistant secretary general and director of finance Amelia Gan managed AFC accounts which Mr. Bin Hammam used “to facilitate personal transactions as if they were his personal bank accounts.” It also alleges that Ms. Gan was involved in negotiating AFC’s contract with WSG that is being questioned. Ms. Gan is currently employed as club licensing officer by Qatar Stars League, which is headed by a member of the Qatari royal family, Sheikh Hamad Bin Khalifa Bin Ahmad Al Thani.

Similarly, the former director of Mr. Bin Hammam’s AFC office, Jenny Be, who like Ms. Gan and AFC’s director of Vision Asia, Michelle Chai, was let go last year after Mr. Bin Hamman became embroiled in the FIFA scandal, is also employed by Qatar Star League as club liaison officer. AFC assistant secretary general Carlo Nohra left voluntarily.

Mr. Nohra, a former WSG vice president for corporate strategy whose $19,767 car loan was paid by Mr. Bin Hammam according to the PWC report, “played a prominent role in negotiating the detailed clauses of the MRA,” PWC said. Mr. Nohra was chief executive officer of the UAE football league until January of this year. He has since become CEO of UAE soccer club Al Ain FC LLC. Ms. Chai is the UAE professional league’s director of club licensing and professional affairs.

The league is managed by the UAE Football Association headed by Yousef al-Serkal, an AFC executive committee member who is widely seen as close to Mr. Bin Hammam. Mr. Al-Serkal is campaigning to succeed Mr. Bin Hammam as AFC president. Ms. Chai, according to AFC sources, has accompanied Mr. Al-Serkal to AFC meetings.

Supporters of Mr. Bin Hammam who like some former AFC employees credit him for his turning around of Asian soccer and generosity describe him as a man who embraced new ideas, enjoyed trying out new concepts and was eager to adopt best practices. “But there’s also that baggage that is universal in world soccer. He’s just the one who got caught with his hand in the cookie jar,” said a former AFC employee. He said he like many others in AFC had been aware of Mr. Bin Hammam’s questionable financial management. The PWC report came to a similar conclusion.

It is nonetheless not clear if the allegations in the PWC report prove to be true why Mr. Bin Hammam used AFC accounts for questionable dealings that could have been done through accounts that would have been harder to trace. Similarly, it is not clear why a man of Mr. Bin Hammam’s global stature apparently openly flaunted international standards of conflict of interest and good governance even if some of those practices are endemic to post-oil wealth Gulf culture.

The former employee said Mr. Bin Hammam had promoted personnel to positions they would have unlikely been able to occupy otherwise. He said Ms. Gan had been a bookkeeper prior to becoming assistant secretary general and director of finance. Ms. Be, he said, was a secretary before being elevated to head of Mr. Bin Hammam’s office and Ms. Chai was a development officer before also being appointed assistant secretary general.

The employee said the WSG contract had enabled Mr. Bin Hammam “to live an extravagant life style” and shower his extravagance on AFC itself. He described “over the top” AFC functions at which personnel and guests were given jewelry.

He said Mr. Bin Hammam’s decision in 2008 to invite the heads of member associations of the Confederation of African Football (CAF) to stop off in Kuala Lumpur for a shopping spree before continuing on to that year’s FIFA congress in Sydney instead of travelling to Australia together with other FIFA members had sparked irritation among Asian football bodies, particularly those of Japan and South Korea.

The employee as well as sources close to the AFC investigation of Mr. Bin Hammam said that the Japanese, South Korean, Jordanian and Kuwaiti soccer associations have long been unhappy with the WSG contract which they saw as unfavorable to the Asian confederation. More than half of the revenues derived from the contract are believed to originate in Japan and South Korea. “Everybody who had a look at the contract could see that it was completely in favor of WSG,” one of the sources said. “Japan fought it hard. A number of associations, including Jordan and Kuwait protested. Nothing however was taken into consideration at the 2009 AFC congress,” said another source.

James M. Dorsey is a senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore and author of the blog, The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer

Conflicting visions of society spark Israeli and Egyptian soccer violence

Israeli soccer violence - reflection of a brutalized society

By James M. Dorsey

Fan violence has sparked match cancellations on both sides of the Arab-Israeli divide.

The stakes for Egyptian and Israeli soccer fans are high – the nature of the society they want to live in and in some cases the very existence of some of their financially troubled clubs – even if the two groups are likely to agree on little more than their passion for the game.

For militant Egyptian soccer fans the battle is about securing the goals of last year’s popular uprising that toppled Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak, ending military rule and saving clubs from financial ruin as a result of initial suspension and ultimate cancellation of Egypt’s top two tournaments. A majority of Egyptian fans, who favor a more pro-Palestinian Egyptian foreign policy, have little empathy for their Israeli counterparts whom they see as thugs, many of whom are racists with their anti-Arab and anti-Muslim chants attitudes.

The Egyptian view is not unfounded even if leaders of the Egyptian ultras – militant, highly politicized, street battle-hardened fan groups modeled on similar organizations in Italy and Serbia – are struggling to keep their rank and file whose cry for dignity is often expressed in clashes with security forces under control.

Israeli soccer brawls over the past month ranged from pure hooliganism and violent clashes between players to attacks on Palestinians and more moderate Jews outside the confines of the stadium. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu Sunday called for a crackdown on violence on the soccer field, after fighting broke out on Friday between players of Hapoel Ramat Gan and Bnei Lod. "If there's violence, there will not be soccer. We must uproot this violence in order to return to games that spectators can enjoy, myself among them,” Mr. Netanyahu told a cabinet meeting according to The Jerusalem Post.

The incident in Ramat Gan followed thousands of Hapoel Tel Aviv fans rioting on the pitch after their team lost to Maccabi Tel Aviv. A few days later, two fans of Maccabi Petach Tikvah attempted to attack a referee. In late March a Hapoel Haifa player was hospitalized after being headbutted by a Maccabi Petach Tikvah coach and then kicked in the head by a team associate. The two most onerous incidents involved militant anti-Arab fans of financially troubled Beitar Jerusalem, Mr. Netanyahu’s notorious club, in which supporters first attacked Palestinian workers and shoppers in a Jerusalem mall and later a Jewish woman who protested against their racist attitude. Police were severely criticized for failing to intervene in the mall attack.

The situation in nationalist Israel and post-Egypt could not be more different the laxity of the Israeli police notwithstanding. Yet, they are similar when it comes to the lack of political will on both sides of the Egyptian-Israeli divide to tackle soccer violence as well as governments’ failure to create an environment in which politically motivated violence is viewed as unacceptable. To be sure, the Israeli Football Association (IFA) has responded firmly to player violence but despite being the only soccer body in the Middle East and North Africa to have launched an anti-racist campaign has been lenient in meting out punishments for politically motivated violence.

The IFA last month significantly reduced Beitar's punishment for soccer violence from three home games out of town and one behind partly closed doors to on the grounds that the measure would not change fan behavior. With  the worst disciplinary record in Israel’s Premier League, Beitar has faced since 2005 more than 20 hearings and has received various punishments, including point deductions, fines and matches behind closed doors because of its fans’ racism.

Beitar’s matches often resemble a Middle Eastern battlefield. It’s mostly Sephardic fans of Middle Eastern and North African origin, revel in their status as the bad boys of Israeli soccer. Their dislike of Ashkenazi Jews of East European extraction rivals their disdain for Palestinians. Supported by Israeli right wing leaders, Beitar traces its roots to a revanchist Zionist youth movement. Its founding players actively resisted the pre-state British mandate authorities. Beitar is Israel’s only leading club never to have signed an Israeli Palestinian player because of fan pressure despite the fact that Palestinians are among the country’s top players.

By contrast, Egyptian teams already reeling from the cancellation of the Premier League in February following the death of 74 fans in a brawl in the Suez Canal city of Port Said fear financial disaster as a result of Sunday’s looming annulment of the Egypt Cup. The Egyptian Football Association (EFA) has appealed to the country’s military rulers, the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF), to step in after a refusal by the interior ministry, which controls the police and the security forces. The refusal was prompted by the security forces’ reluctance to engage with deeply hostile, militant soccer fans because clashes would further damage their already tarnished image as the executioners of the former Mubarak regime and the military.

The military and the police have done little in the 14 months since Mubarak’s departure to polish the image of the security forces by projecting a willingness to reform the police, holding officers accountable for their actions and being seen to investigate the Port Said incident that allows the chips to fall where they fall. The trial against 61, people including fans and nine security officials, accused of responsibility for Port Said was suspended at its opening last week after disruptions by family and friends of the dead.

Police reform is a tough pill to swallow for the Egyptian military. The military “find themselves in a classic Catch-22 situation with regards to police reform. If they listen to the aspirations of the people and fully reform the police, they lose a valuable tool of state control. Should reform take place, where would the buck stop? Real reform in state institutions might later have personal ramifications for SCAF itself, as Egyptians are already calling for civilian control over the military, which may lead to investigations of the military junta down the line. On the other hand, should SCAF choose not to fully reform the police, they risk continued clashes with the people, who no longer fear the police - and consider it one of the last remaining bastions of the old regime,” said Adel Abdel Ghafar, a PhD scholar at the Australian National University and scion of a prominent Egyptian soccer figure, writing on Al Jazeera.com.

Granted, the Israeli police does not have the problems of their Egyptian counterpart. But if the stakes in Egypt are a more transparent, more accountable society, in Israel they are the very democracy that the Jewish state prides itself on, which increasingly is less based on tolerance and respect for diverging opinions and ethnic and religious minorities and ever more so on intolerance and the brutalizing effects of 45 years of occupation of Palestinian lands.

Violence in Israel is not limited to the soccer pitch. A senior Israeli military officer was celebrated by Israel’s right wing after attacking on camera a bicycle protester on the West Bank on camera in the same week as the Ramat Gan incident. Youths on a Tel Aviv beach taunted and abused a mentally disturbed woman inviting her to have sex with them.

The battles in Egypt and Israel are fought on multiple battlefields of which soccer is an important one. That puts the onus not only on governments but also on soccer associations, club management and last but not least world soccer body FIFA, which so far for all practical matters has looked the other way by at best issuing lame protests that Israelis and Egyptians can ignore because there is no price to pay.

With an inept military more concerned about its perks than the country’s future in charge in Egypt and an Israeli government that includes many Beitar Jerusalem supporters, little can be expected beyond at best demands for law enforcement from the highest authority in the country.

That means that the national soccer federations, FIFA and the regional associations, the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) and the Confederation of African Football (CAF), more than ever need to step up to the plate.

James M. Dorsey is a senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore and the author of the blog, The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer.

Bin Hammam launches scathing attack on FIFA ethics committee

Mohammed Bin Hammam (Source: AP)

By James M. Dorsey

Disgraced former world soccer body FIFA vice president and suspended Asian Football Confederation head Mohammed Bin Hammam has launched a scathing attack on the deputy chairman of FIFA’s ethics committee, which in July banned him for life from involvement in soccer, as well as on the body’s secretary general.

In a letter to Petrus Damaseb, the deputy ethics committee chair, published on Mr. Bin Hammam’s website, the ousted official charged that he and Caribbean Football Union (CFU) executives he stands accused of having bribed had been targeted for racial reasons. "Were I a European, or were the Caribbean part of Europe, neither Blatter nor (FIFA secretary general Jerome) Valcke will dare lay a finger on us; were we Europeans, you would have never been given the opportunity to chair this Ethics Committee panel and slaughter people left and right, as you have done."

Mr. Bin Hammam was banned by the ethics committee after a investigation concluded that he had bribed CFU executives to secure their votes for his failed bid for the FIFA presidency. Mr. Bin Hammam, a 62-year old Qatari national, withdrew his candidacy in late May hours before he was suspended by the ethics committee pending the outcome of its investigation. His withdrawal paved the way for the unchallenged re-election in June of FIFA president Sepp Blatter for a fourth term. Mr. Blatter has vowed to use his term to stamp out corruption in FIFA, which is confronting its worst scandal since its founding 107 years ago.

Mr. Bin Hammam charged in his letter dated September 4 that Mr. Blatter was using Mr. Damaseb "as his pawn in his battle for revenge", with Mr. Valcke pulling the strings. He expressed confidence in his letter that he would emerge from his appeal of the ethics committee’s decision "unscathed of these creative [bribery] allegations designed by Valcke and Blatter, and supported by you, to damage my reputation".

Mr. Bin Hammam has consistently denied any wrongdoing. "I am capable enough financially and otherwise to defend myself for years if it is necessary," he wrote.

Mr. Bin Hammam charged that “nobody in this world will believe that Valcke and Blatter are qualified to fight any sort of corruption. If they are serious about fighting corruption, they should have the courage to volunteer themselves as first subjects of such investigations on the allegations raised against them since years.” Mr. Bin Hammam was referring to allegations that Mr. Blatter had bought votes during the 2002 FIFA presidential election to fend off a challenge from Confederation of African Football (CAF) chief Issa Hayatou.

He recalls that Mr. Damaseb supported Mr. Blatter at the time. "What will be your position if his opponent had won the election, and started a similar witch-hunt questioning and pressurising you with threat of sanctions if you do not admit that you were bribed for voting Blatter? If your conscience is on vacation, it is time to recall it because enough is really enough!! You should stop Valcke–Blatter damaging people’s reputation and lives. Those people have children and families. Just think what kind of crime you are committing. "Please stand for the virtues of your profession and for what this noble profession embraces: fairness and justice, not oppression," Mr. Bin Hammam said.

Mr. Bin Hammam’s letter seems to alternate between bluster and pleas to Mr. Damaseb. "Please do not let Blatter use you as his pawn in his battle for revenge. Blatter is immune and is so used to betrayal, conspiracy and wrongdoings but you are not. Have you read Valcke’s threatening letter to the Caribbean Football Union member associations two days after my conviction? [July 25] He clearly indicated to them, either they admit that they had received bribe from Bin Hammam, or they will be punished. He goes on to say that if they admit that they received the bribe, the Ethics Committee will forgive them,” Mr. Bin Hammam said.

"Did you or the Ethics Committee decide that? Or is this just another example of him pulling the strings and then later, dictating to you? How have you convicted me first and then now you are asking them to determining whether they have been bribed or not?” he went on to say.

James M. Dorsey is a senior fellow at Nanyang Technological University's S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore and the author of the blog, The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer.

South Africa agrees to replace Libya as host of 2013 Nations Cup in bid to pre-empt Nigeria

By James M. Dorsey

Libya has agreed to withdraw as host of the 2013 African Cup of Nations in favour of South Africa ss rebels hunt for Colonel Moammar Qaddafi and the country heads for a prolonged and possibly messy transition to democracy.

The South African Football Association (SAFA) said in a statement that it had signed an agreement to that effect with its Libyan counterpart.

SAFA said that South Africa had effectively swapped hosting dates with Libya. In return for withdrawing from the 2013 tournament, SAFA said that the troubled North African nation would host the 2017 games that originally had been awarded to South Africa.

The Confederation of African Football (CAF) had been pressuring Libya to recognize earlier rather than later that it may not be able to host the 2013 Cup so that a replacement could be found in a timely fashion.

CAF wanted to avoid a repeat of the scramble in April when South Africa agreed to host at the last minute the African Youth Championship, which had originally been scheduled to take place in Libya.

SAFA said the swap with Libya would have to be confirmed by CAF’s executive committee which is scheduled to meet in Cairo on Sept. 28.

"All the issues regarding 2013 will be discussed at the end of September. The issues regarding 2013 will definitely be discussed by the executive committee and decisions on tournament hosting can only be made by the executive committee,” ," CAF spokesman Suleiman Habuba said..

The agreement between South Africa and Libya furthermore covers the 2014 African Nations Cup, a tournament for emerging players, which was also to be hosted by Libya.

It was not immediately clear who signed the agreement on behalf of the Libyan association. The Libyan soccer body was headed by Mr. Qaddafi’s soccer-playing son, Al Saadi Al Qaddafi, whose whereabouts are unclear. Al Saadi was reported earlier this week to have been captured by the rebels after they entered the capital of Tripoli.

By signing the agreement, South Africa hopes to pre-empt Algeria and Nigeria, which are also lobbying to replace Libya. Egypt was initially interested but said later that it was not a candidate. South Africa hopes to capitalize on the fact that it has the infrastructure and experience in place following last year’s World Cup.

The agreement between South Africa and Libya could pose a problem for CAF, which in 2006 agreed with Nigeria that it would have the right to step in if any of the Nations Cup hosts named that year were unable to fulfil their commitments.

James M. Dorsey is a senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore and the author of the blog, The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer.