EXCLUSIVE | In conversation with CAF President Patrice Motsepe

Well, I've just arrived this morning from South Africa because I had to attend a funeral, but it's good to be back. But it's also a moment of excitement in South Africa for football and a recognition of the enormous success of South African football over the last few years. But of course, we are now at a stage where we play against the best football nations not just in Africa but also in the world, and we have to keep investing, particularly in our young boys and young girls in our youth, and make sure that club football in South Africa and, of course, my responsibility is South Africa and the continent, the whole of the continent, but work together more with the football leadership in South Africa. The partnership between SAFA and the PSL is very important, and support their cooperation, ensure that there's also support from government and the private sector. What is clear to me is that many of the African countries on the continent that have done exceptionally well have got enormous support from their governments and from their partnerships and from the private sector in particular. South Africa, as I've said on numerous occasions, should be a football power. We've got enormous talent, God-given talent that's excellent on the continent, amongst the best in the world. I mean, the skills and the ball control and just the capacity to dribble past opposition players, it's something that's inborn. You see it in the townships, in the rural areas, young boys and now of course as well young girls just have this God-given talent, and that's what's required to compete against the best as we will be doing the whole of the African continent and South Africa. Bafana Bafana is playing tomorrow against a very big competitor. But we've got to look at this process in terms of the ongoing global competitiveness, the investment, and you know, many of the African countries are identifying the enormous benefits, the jobs that football is creating, the huge financial and commercial rewards. The last AFCON in Ivory Coast, the country benefited $1.5 billion. So we have to make sure that in South Africa we look at football as an important tool to, in the first instance, make sure that the quality of the PSL and our national team is world class, but also it creates jobs for our young boys and girls who are top football players, those who are employed by the football clubs, employed by the national team, the jobs that come from tourism related to sports. And with increasing recognition of the enormous benefits, South African football will indeed be amongst the best in the world.

Well, I know from my days as president of Mamelodi Sundowns, you have to incentivize your players, and one of the most important ways to incentivize them is to say to them, if you win this match, we will double your salary. There's a direct benefit that goes into your pocket, more money for yourself, for your family, for those who depend on you. So when we increase the prize money, one of the prerequisites we emphasized was we want part of that money to find its way into the pockets of the players and the coaches, and it has delivered enormous results. We've also increased the prize money of the Champions League and the Confederation Cup. We don't want to announce that now. We'll announce that as soon as the AFCON is over. And you know, we spent $13 million. You remember when I became president, CAF owed $150 million. This is the money that we had to pay. We've paid all of that, and we've built an enormous amount of resources, but that's partly because the partners and the sponsors recognize that the money is going where it's supposed to go: football development, academies, football players, administrators, employees, and that the money is dealt with with the highest degree of governance, of ethics, of integrity. And this is part of the legacy that we want to leave, because my term as president is going to come to an end, and part of my duty is to make sure that whoever takes over after I have left, the leadership continues the good work that we've all done together.