African football’s indecisive leaders must accept the blame for Olembe tragedy

Even in his first press conference after Monday’s disaster at the Stade Olembé in which eight fans died, Patrice Motsepe, the president of the Confederation of African Football, was looking to shift the blame. He convened a commission to investigate the causes – it was expected to report on Friday, but is yet to do so – but the avoidance of corporate responsibility had begun already.

There was the gate that was “inexplicably” shut. And that, almost certainly, was the direct cause of the buildup of people and the surge towards the open gate that knocked down a temporary barrier and led to people being trampled on. Whoever didn’t open that shut gate will take the blame.

Motsepe also spoke of fans without tickets. Nobody seems to doubt that is true, but neither is it provable – and the stadium was not full to capacity (although it was probably full beyond the supposed 80% cap imposed because of Covid); the problem was not the number of fans but their distribution. A photograph taken well before kick-off shows clearly the problem of a handful of police trying to check a growing crowd of thousands 20 yards or so in front of the fence where the tragedy occurred.

But there are causes and there are causes. “Security,” Motsepe said, “is the responsibility of the local organising committee and it is not Caf’s responsibility. Caf’s responsibility is to advise. Caf has no legal obligation and has no responsibility and should not be blamed. But we are partners and it’s not time to point fingers.”

Yet he had already done so twice.

It’s easy – and not untrue – to say the cause is a basic one of crowd control. There has been talk that yet another perimeter fence had been planned but not built, and of the need for security checks to be