A French investigative journalist Romain Molina has revealed rampant claims of wide interference which took place against Morocco during the first-instance judgement of a case handled by CAF.
He refutes accusations of “anti-Moroccan” sentiment toward him, explaining that behind-the-scenes facts in this instance support a position unfavourable to Moroccan interests.
Molina reveals the existence of a message sent by Augustin Senghor (president of the Senegalese Federation and member of the CAF Executive Committee) to Patrice Motsepe before the appeals committee’s verdict.
In this text, Senghor expressed concern over a “secret meeting” aimed at favouring Morocco at the expense of Senegal.
The author highlights a major contradiction: while Senghor denounces these manoeuvres in private, he remains publicly silent on the exact content of this meeting, while Motsepe can no longer claim to be unaware of the internal tensions within the Executive Committee.
“I’m telling you, in the first instance, there was interference against Morocco—I’m telling you, I’ll sign off on it, and I stand by it. That’s why, and that’s what I was telling you in private, Youssef, when people accuse me of being anti-Moroccan, it makes me laugh because here, I’m going with the opposite narrative. Right now, I’m going with a ‘Pro-Morocco’ narrative, but I’m not just being pro-Morocco; I’m sticking to the narrative of what actually happened behind the scenes. At that specific moment, they went against Morocco. And when that happens, put yourself in the shoes of the Moroccan officials; you’re standing there thinking, ‘We’ve been played.’ Because you can bet that if I have the information, they have it too. So, naturally, there’s interference coming from all sides regarding the appeals committee.
And regarding that appeals committee, I published something yesterday that kills me with laughter, and I’m going to publish it again because people take shortcuts.
So, you have Senghor, the former president of the Senegalese federation and a CAF committee member; he writes—I have the message, the whole thing if you want—he writes to Motsepe before the judgement, saying he heard by chance about a secret meeting that was going to dismiss Senegal in favour of Morocco.
He says, ‘I hope it’s fake news; what’s happening isn’t normal.’ He writes him a long paragraph. Two points to note here: First, Motsepe cannot publicly say he knows nothing when an executive committee member is warning him.
But on the other hand, how do you explain that Senghor doesn’t come out and reveal what he knows today? He’s started talking everywhere else, but he doesn’t mention this secret meeting. I don’t know, but if you know there are secret meetings going on, why don’t you just come out and say it? “
