Mosimane slams Motsepe, likens his Caf leadership to that of Hayatou

Pitso Mosimane is not convinced with the job being done by sitting Caf president and his former boss at Mamelodi Sundowns, Patrice Motsepe.

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The former Sundowns president has been in the highest football administration seat on the continent for over a year now.

But Mosimane is not sold yet, going as far as likening Motsepe’s administration to that of long-serving former Caf president Issa Hayatou, who hogged the position for close to 30 years.

One of the things that Mosimane feels should have been long implemented in African football is the Video Assistant Referee (VAR) and he puts the blame for the slow progress in this regard squarely on Motsepe’s doorstep.

He believes this system should now be standard in Caf competitions like the Champions League, Confederation Cup and Africa Cup of Nations.

“This only shows the difference between Copa Laboratories and the Asian Champions League versus the African Champions League. The difference is 20 years. How much does it (VAR) cost?

“Egypt has it for every match. There is always talk that it is going to be better and what not, but better where?” asked Mosimane.

“What has happened? We are still stuck in the Hayatou era. I have been in this thing for more than eight years and nothing has changed. We have benefitted from VAR and we also had our challenges with VAR.
“It is very difficult for the referees and the linesmen to really call it in real time,” he added.

Mosimane’s criticism of Motsepe is however possibly prejudiced as the two are said to no longer be seeing eye-to-eye since they both left Chloorkop for Cairo in different capacities.

Sundowns are suing “Jingles” for about R8-million for breaching his contract when he left the Brazilians at the end of September 2020 to join the Red Devils.

It had been just five months after putting pen to paper on a new deal at Sundowns that he left.

Before he watched his side lose 1-0 to his former employers, Mosimane had an incident where he had to remove the barricades on the road on the route to the FNB Stadium, where the fans had a blockade to prevent the Al-Ahly’s bus from getting through.

And that is one of the things that makes Mosimane believe Sundowns bosses have an agenda against him.

“I don’t want to make excuses. People play a game to take you to a different emotion, which at our level is not a problem. We played in the Fifa Club World Cup, and we cannot say blockading the road is too much of a problem. We don’t hide behind these things. And we know the person behind this, there’s only one person behind this.

“I am a strong character in football, I have been around Sundowns when they were under Natasha and Angelo Tsichlas, I was at Sundowns when Zola Mahobe was the owner.

“I was with Sundowns when the Krok brothers were in charge, and I have been with Sundowns with the current owner. I came far with this team, you can’t break me.”