Patrice Motsepe, President of the Confederation of African Football, held a press conference today, Wednesday, in South Africa, to discuss a number of files within the African continent, the most prominent of which is the distinguished participation of the African national teams in the World Cup.
Motsepe said in his statements during the press conference: "There are 4 important matters related to the performance of the 10 African countries that participated in the World Cup, I am proud of them, they delivered a high-level performance, after returning from the World Cup I believe the African teams could be the World Cup champion, life makes us believe in dreams".
He added: "I say, and as a businessman in the background, I see that there is money you can give to people and get returns and titles from it, there are expectations, even to obtain this title if you look at the biggest African teams about which there was recent talk regarding their experience and it was important for me to listen more than to express my opinion, and one of those comments is that the performance of the African national teams was distinguished".
He continued: "Look at Egypt and Argentina and what happened between them in this match, and what happened to Cape Verde, this showed that there is an investment commitment and unity is important for us to increase cooperation between governments and countries within the continent for investment, and increasing our participation with the private sector, it is very important for success to have financial independence, but in the world there must be support from the government and the private sector".
He completed: "I am confident that we are making tremendous progress more perfect than before, the African federations must hold on to development and the dream, when they see success there must be continuity, South Africa paid a lot, and Algeria, Ghana and Senegal also played, and the two teams that played exceptionally are Egypt and Morocco, the results speak for themselves".
He continued: "I will give a message to South Africa and it is a message to all 45 countries I am proud of Nigeria and Cameroon and all the countries, Nigeria may not have qualified but a World Cup without Nigeria and Cameroon makes it incomplete, and part of what we are doing now is to work more than before, it must succeed, maybe it won't succeed overnight but it will succeed after a period".
He continued: "I have that I am not in the air but based on goals and standards and facts that confirm and support our optimism, one of the goals in South Africa is to qualify for the final, we can in Africa reach the semi-final and the final, Morocco reached the round of 16, and also with Egypt, I am proud of Egypt and all the countries that participated".
He added: "Success for any African country in the World Cup is a big thing, and we are all proud, if one country reaches the semi-final or the final we will be proud because they will gain the world's respect for African football".
He concluded: "Cape Verde held meetings for all African teams participating in the World Cup, and the goal was to talk about how we reach the best and what we learned in the last World Cup, and where the field of improvement and development, the matter depends on the results, all teams presented a good performance, next year there will be Kenya and Uganda who will talk about what they have reached, and this will be a development for African football".
