CAF fails Africa’s World Cup fans | World Cup 2026

On December 5, at the draw for the 2026 men’s World Cup finals at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC, FIFA President Gianni Infantino told US President Donald Trump the first FIFA Peace Prize. “That’s what we want from a leader — a leader who cares about the people,” Infantino told the president from the stage. “You definitely deserve the first FIFA Peace Prize.”

Three days earlier, Trump used the closing minutes of a White House cabinet meeting to call Somalis “trash.” “Their country is not good for a reason … Their country stinks, and we don’t want them in our country,” he said. At the time, many remembered Trump’s remarks from 2018 about African countries being “shithole”.

The problem with what happened in December is not just the absurdity of awarding the US president a “peace prize”. It is that his clearly racist attitude towards an entire continent has been translated into policies that will affect the African countries that have qualified for the World Cup. And yet there is no response from FIFA, and more importantly, no response from the Confederation of African Football (CAF).

Four nations whose teams will play in the US are on Trump’s travel ban list; two are Africa: Senegal and the Ivory Coast. Haiti – the third – has a population of African descent. Athletes, coaches and support staff have been formally exempted from the travel ban, so the African and Haitian teams can play, but many of their supporters will not be able to travel to support them.

In addition, three other African countries that have qualified for the World Cup – Algeria, Tunisia and Cape Verde – are on a list for the so-called visa bond program, which requires visa applicants to post refundable bonds of up to $15,000 before a visa is issued. There is no waiver for World Cup fans. For many supporters this would be an impossible sum to produce in addition to travel and match ticket expenses. In Tunisia, for example, the gross disposable income per capita is a little over $500. A Tunisian fan might pay as much as 30 times this amount as a bond to get a US visa.

Meanwhile, the ambassador of another African nation that qualified for the World Cup – South Africa – has been suspended, while the US administration has made baseless claims that genocide is being carried out against a white minority that used to preside over an apartheid regime.

CAF has not issued a statement, nor has any national football federation in Africa. That silence is a direct rejection of what CAF was.

In 1964, FIFA awarded 10 places for the 1966 World Cup to Europe, four to South America and one to Central America and the Caribbean. This remaining slot would be contested by teams from Africa, Asia and Oceania. Shortly after the announcement, Ohene Djan, Ghana’s director of sports and a member of the FIFA Executive Committee, made a telegram to FIFA, with the support of Ghanaian President Kwame Nkrumah.

“Registering strong objection to unfair World Cup arrangement for Afro-Asian countries… Afro-Asian countries struggling through expensive qualifying series for ultimately painful one finalist representation is pathetic and baseless… At worst Africa should have one finalist… Urgent – reconsider,” Djan wrote.

Ethiopian football administrator Yidnekatchew Tessema joined him, labeling the FIFA decision “a mockery of economics, politics and geography”. When FIFA refused to review the award, all 15 African federations then eligible withdrew. The World Cup soccer tournament in 1966 went without an African team.

In 1968, FIFA was forced to grant Africa and Asia one guaranteed slot each. Every African appearance at every World Cup since then is down to that single telegram sent by Djan.

CAF was established seven years before the telegram, in 1957, by four federations: Egypt, Sudan, Ethiopia and South Africa. South Africa was excluded from the first Africa Cup of Nations tournament (AFCON) the same year because the apartheid regime refused to field a racially mixed team.

CAF formally suspended South Africa in 1960. FIFA first did this in 1976. The 1996 South African AFCON triumph, the 2010 South African World Cup, all rest on actions taken by a CAF that had little leverage but was still willing to take a stand.

Today, CAF consists of 54 federations. It is fully integrated into FIFA’s revenue and management architecture. It has nine guaranteed World Cup slots, a large AFCON revenue stream, FIFA Forward funding, and a president who serves as a FIFA vice-president by virtue of the CAF chairman.

A confrontational attitude at this moment carries real institutional costs. This reality is itself the indictment. The integration of African football into FIFA’s revenue architecture has produced a confederation whose institutional survival now depends on never acting on the principles it was founded to defend.

There are actions CAF can take that will not impose a high cost on any federation. It could publicly demand that host countries issue conventional visas, not FIFA Pass priority appointments, which expedite the interview without abandoning the bond, to all ticketed fans of each CAF-qualified nation.

It could also demand that matches involving teams from countries under full US travel bans be moved to Canada or Mexico, where screening is strict but no general ban applies.

And it could formally join the FairSquare ethics complaint filed against Infantino on December 8, which alleges four breaches of Article 15 of FIFA’s Code of Ethics – the requirement that football officials remain politically neutral in dealings with governments.

If the current CAF leadership does nothing to guarantee equal treatment for African fans, it will send a very different message to the people of the continent than Djan sent in 1964: that it fully endorses bowing to powerful governments and turning a blind eye to inequality, discrimination and injustice.

The opinions expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial position.