Fred Fell, as president of the South African Football Association, explained that FIFA could not have two associations from the same country as members. Both SAFA and the South African Soccer Federation (SASF), which had been formed in 1951 and was calling for integrated sport, were present at the FIFA Congress despite attempts by the South African government to stop SASF members from leaving the country.13
After a marathon series of discussions by FIFA members, the two South African associations were urged to find common ground. FIFA delegates were against racial discrimination and emphasised that “all those wishing to play Association football should be given equal opportunities to play.”
FIFA executive member, Dr Ing Ottorino Barassi from Italy was tasked to intervene on behalf of the world body to find a solution and “modus vivendi”. Later, Dr Barassi reported that both Bloom and Fell had agreed that the application for membership should be postponed to the 1958 congress.
But as the fourth CAF president, Yidnekatchew Tessema of Ethiopia later explained, the politics of South African sport were rather mystifying. “Although racial discrimination in South African sports was officially instituted in 1950, not many outsiders knew about it,” Tessema asserted.
The two bodies accused CAF of mixing politics with sports. The Continental football governing body insisted that “sports segregation in any form is racism and this contravenes fundamental principles and objectives of sport and contradicts FIFA statutes.” They instead demanded South Africa’s expulsion from FIFA. The South African question led to major clashes between the FIFA president Sir Stanley Rous and Yidnekatchew Tessema of CAF.
Tessema later said that what astounded them was the discovery of what appeared to have been a FIFA plot to disempower CAF: the African football leadership came across copies of a confidential communiqué just before the 1966 FIFA Congress in London. There was a plan to create a regional Southern Africa Football Association, consisting of South Africa, Rhodesia (later Zimbabwe), Mauritius, Madagascar, Botswana and Malawi. More than a quarter of a century later, South Africa was to help establish the Council of Southern Africa Football Associations (COSAFA), a regional football body accepted by both CAF and FIFA.
The commitment of Sir Stanley Rous to keeping the Football Association of South Africa as a full member of FIFA, despite its colour bar, was also evident in the lengthy correspondence between himself and the British Anti-Apartheid Movement, which called for the exclusion of the racist body from international football.
“If South Africa applies segregation in soccer that is its concern ... all we are interested in is to see the controlling body of soccer in this country furthering the cause of football to the best of its ability,” Sir Stanley wrote.14
There was a letter apparently written by Sir Stanley on September 6, 1971, to Mr GHL Kerr of the Rhodesian Football Association proposing that countries that were not CAF members could form their own confederation that would be accepted by FIFA, by default, maintaining South Africa’s membership.
According to Tessema, to whom the copy of the letter was sent, Kerr said it “[would not be] possible for FIFA to invite member countries in Southern Africa to join a new group.” The African Confederation would object, he pointed out, particularly that targeted members were newly independent countries or those still to gain independence. It was also during the time when CAF had forged an alliance with the South American Confederation, in preparation for the 1974 FIFA presidential elections.
Although African associations boycotted the World Cup held in England in 1966 for a different reason, to CAF it was a twin strike that sent a strong message: “Africans are not and will not be pushovers.” The 1966 World Cup itself caused bitter disagreements long before the finals kicked off.
Fifteen African nations boycotted the tournament in protest against a 1964 FIFA ruling that required the champion team from the African zone to play off against the winner of either the Asia or the Oceania zone in order to gain a place at the finals. The Africans felt that winning their zone should be enough to merit qualification for the finals, all the more so since Africa, as a FIFA zone, had been recognised by the 1954 congress, a full ten years previously. The mass withdrawal of African countries comprised Algeria, Cameroon, Ethiopia, Gabon, Ghana, Guinea, Liberia, Libya, Mali, Morocco, Nigeria, Senegal, Sudan, Tunisia, and the United Arab Republic (a union of Egypt, Syria and Iraq).
Meanwhile, South Africa, which had been idling since its expulsion from CAF, was placed with Australia and the two Koreas to play for the 1966 World Cup qualifiers. When South Korea boycotted the qualifying games in Cambodia, this left only North Korea and Australia to contest the qualifier since South Africa had been disqualified. North Korea won easily, thus qualifying for their maiden World Cup in 1966, where they reached the quarter-finals. (Incidentally, since that time they did not qualify again until South Africa 2010.) After the mass withdrawal by Africans, South Africa, which had always enjoyed strong support from FIFA, angered the Association by suggesting that a black’s only South African team be sent to represent the continent.
While CAF wanted South Africa expelled from FIFA and totally isolated from international sport, its efforts had paid off to a certain extent. At the FIFA Congress in Tokyo in October 1964, South Africa was suspended, as FIFA now acknowledged that the country’s racial policies contravened the anti-discrimination charter.
After the formation of the Organisation of African Unity (which was to reinvent itself as the African Union in 2001), CAF persuaded the OAU to do all in its power to call for South Africa’s total isolation.
Finally relenting, FIFA in 1963 sent a three-man fact-finding mission to South Africa, led by Sir Stanley Rous. The resulting FIFA report concluded that the national football federation had nothing to do with government-instituted racial discrimination, and recommended that CAF re-admit South Africa. The following year at a FIFA Congress in Tokyo, just before the 1964 Olympics, there was a counter-proposal calling for South Africa’s expulsion, put forward by Ethiopia, Egypt and Ghana, which had recently joined the association. The majority of the attendees opted for a suspension rather than outright expulsion. (It was to be another ten years before FIFA was finally persuaded that South Africa’s policies were unacceptably discriminatory.)
In January 1961, at the FIFA Annual Meeting held in Cairo there was heated debate when Sir Stanley Rous moved that South Africa’s membership be maintained. While Rous refused to give the official voting figures at a press conference, the Associated Press quoted “one well-placed source” as having said the vote was “11 to 6, with all the Afro-Asian members opposing.” FIFA later released a media statement saying, “FIFA cannot be used as a weapon to force a government to change its internal sports policy.”
More than a decade later, in January 1973, the FIFA executive committee agreed in a postal vote to allow foreign teams to participate in a “multiracial South African sports festival” to be held that March. Quoting Reuters, the Kingston Jamaica, Gleaner reported FIFA as having said the concession should not be “considered as the lifting of the suspension of the South African Football Association.”
Teams from Brazil, England and West Germany had accepted an invitation by the South African Football Association to participate, on condition that special authorisation was given by FIFA. FIFA said the authorisation had been given in the hope that the move would eventually be of benefit to non-white footballers and their organisations in South Africa. The Association also said that it would appoint a special