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One may have been successful in business, be the third richest South African with esteemed heritage, according to the American magazine Forbes, at 2.15 billion euros, presiding over a prestigious club (Mamelodi Sundowns) and suffering from a real lack of notoriety. When in November 2020, Patrice Motsepe, 59, announced his candidacy for the presidency of the African Football Confederation (CAF), which must be decided on March 12 in Rabat, among the actors or observers of African football, many had this first reaction: ” Patrice who? “
” That says a lot about the unexpected side of his candidacy. No one had seen it coming. You really have to take a very close look at the South African economy, especially the mining sector, and the makeup of the Mamelodi Sundowns steering committee to find out who he is. », Summarizes a leader of an African federation.
Patrice Motsepe is an unknown compared to his three challengers, the Senegalese Augustin Senghor, the Ivorian Jacques Anouma and the Mauritanian Ahmed Yahya, all former or current presidents of the federations of their countries. It must be said that the South African does not do much to fill this image gap.
In November 2020, he left it to another to announce his candidacy: it was Danny Jordaan, the president of the South African Football Federation (SAFA) who took care of it, while he himself was ‘was in solitary confinement, thinking he had caught Covid-19. He has not granted any interview since he nurtured the ambition to lead CAF and waited until February 25 to unveil his program.
In a prestigious law firm
This low media exposure does not prevent him from crisscrossing Africa in a private jet to meet the presidents of federations, the same who will vote on March 12 in Rabat. ” When he came to Cameroon for the last African Nations Championship [CHAN], many of them didn’t know who he was », Reports a French journalist present in Yaoundé.
The South African billionaire cultivates a certain discretion, despite an undeniable success. Patrice Motsepe was born in Soweto, a suburb of Johannesburg, but he does not come from a disadvantaged background. His parents, traders in this township, enjoyed a relative financial ease which allowed him to study art, then mining and business law at the University of the Witwatersrand.
This course opened the doors to a prestigious law firm, Bowman Gilfillan, in 1988, where he became the first black partner. The end of apartheid in June 1991 precipitated his social ascent. In 1994, he founded Future Minning and then, three years later, African Rainbow Minerals Gold Limited, a company specializing in the extraction of cobalt, iron, copper and even coal.
His new fortune allows him to afford a football club. And not just any. In 2004, he bought Mamelodi Sundows, a Pretoria club whose record was enriched in particular by a Champions League in 2016, a CAF Supercup in 2017 and seven South African league titles.
Doubts about the reliability of these commitments
Patrice Motsepe also has strong connections with the political world – even if he ostensibly keeps himself apart – since two of his sisters, Tshepo and Bridgette, are married respectively to Cyril Ramaphosa, the current head of the State, and Jeff Radebe, member of the African National Congress (ANC), the ruling party.
For his candidacy, the president of Mamelodi Sundowns, if he is still awaiting the official support of the President of the Republic, has on the other hand obtained that of the federations of Nigeria, Botswana and Sierra Leone, as well as the fourteen federations of Africa. australe, grouped within Cosafa.
But behind the scenes, many doubt the total reliability of these commitments. He also visited Jacques Anouma in Abidjan in December. ” I did not know him, we discussed the development of football in Africa », Confirms the Ivorian. This meeting did not lead to any agreement between the two men, while the rumor lends the billionaire an attempt to come together for the election.
Many present Patrice Motsepe as the ” candidate “ of Gianni Infantino, the president of the International Football Federation (FIFA), who seems to bet on the qualities of a good manager of the South African businessman. Yet others wonder precisely about the South African’s ability to deal with African football on a daily basis.
“I met him during the CHAN, he’s a man who knows football, intervenes Joseph-Antoine Bell, the former goalkeeper of the Cameroon team. But I don’t see how he could manage CAF on a daily basis, because he has his business to do. However, he never wanted to lead the South African federation, probably because he would not have had the time. CAF needs a full-time president, and with him, that surely wouldn’t be the case. “
