faced with salary delays in Africa, selectors prefer to resign

Engin Firat was tired of waiting for his salary and broken promises from his employer. On December 10, the Turkish coach of Kenya, in office for three years, decided to leave, after having waited in vain for a year for his 15,000 euros of monthly emoluments to be transferred to his account. All of its technical staff, faced with the same situation, also decided to resign, and the Kenyan federation could, if it is sued before FIFA, pay the coach the 180,000 euros it owes him.

The case is not isolated in Africa. “In September, a coaches’ seminar was organized in Abidjan. And in talking among ourselves, we realized that it was, unfortunately, a very widespread problem”explains the Swiss Raoul Savoy, then stationed in the Central African Republic. Dismissed in October, he appealed to FIFA to collect 120,000 euros in arrears, the equivalent of a year’s salary. He is not the only one to have taken the case in recent months.

The Moroccan coach of Somalia, Rachid Loustèque, did the same in November, after more than six months without payment. Isaac Ngata, without salary since his appointment in November 2023 at the head of the Red Devils of Congo, would be on the verge of imitating him if his situation does not change, as he confided to the World Africa. FIFA specifies that a coach who has not received his salary for two months can leave his position and sign for another club or another selection.

Others have recently won their cases before the international body. The Frenchman Patrice Neveu has been waiting since June for the 522,000 euros that Gabon owes him, after having noted the abusive nature of his dismissal at the end of 2023. Burkina Faso will have to pay his compatriot Hubert Velud, sacked on April 30, the last five months unpaid debts (15,000 euros per month), as well as bonuses and damages.

“A document or signature is missing”

“Between the moment the judgment is pronounced and the payment of the sum, a lot of time can pass, whereas FIFA says that the debtor has forty-five days to pay. In my situation, the State says that it is up to the federation to pay and the federation says the opposite”explains Patrice Neveu, whose lawyer wrote to FIFA so that it would suspend Gabon, as it had done for Zimbabwe, deprived of qualifying for the 2018 World Cup due to a debt of more of 3.7 million euros with regard to his former Brazilian coach Valinhos.

The list of technicians accumulating salary arrears is still long. The French Sébastien Desabre (Democratic Republic of Congo) and Nicolas Dupuis (South Sudan), the Franco-Comorian Amir Abdou in Mauritania, the Burkinabé Brama Traoré are in this case, while Kaba Diawara (Guinea) and Eric Chelle (Mali) suffered the same situation before their dismissal.

“The problem, which is not specific to Africa, can concern a small federation as well as a larger one. In Nigeria, the Portuguese Victor Peseiro waited for his money for nineteen months and, before the CAN in Ivory Coast, he received seventeen months, but minus so-called taxes equivalent to 35% of his salary.explains agent Tarek Oueslati, under contract with several technicians working or having worked on the continent. Even a coach like Aliou Cissé in Senegal, although African champion in 2022, had suffered six months of delay in 2023.

However, not all African federations are concerned. In South Africa, Algeria, Ivory Coast and Morocco, coaches are paid on time. The Belgian Marc Brys, in Cameroon, saw things quickly return to order after a delay attributed to administrative red tape. Less well-off federations, such as those of the Comoros, Sudan or the Gambia, generally respect the deadlines.

Hesitant to enter into conflict with the state

“You should know that in Africa, in many federations, it is the State which pays the salary of the coach and all or part of his technical staff. And often, the money takes time to be released for multiple reasons – a document or a signature is missing, relations between the federation and the sports ministry are poor… – even though it does not seem insurmountable to set up an automatic transfer for someone who will earn the same amount every month for the duration of their contract »continues Tarek Oueslati. It also happens that the payment of salary takes longer after one or two bad results, an inelegant way of sanctioning a coach deemed unproductive.

The Belgian-Congolese Christian N’Sengi, who was the coach of the DRC between 2019 and 2021, attacked the federation which employed him before FIFA. “I haven’t gotten my money all this time. I just had my salary as national technical director [5 700 euros]. FIFA ordered the federation to pay me 144,000 euros, while I claimed 545,000 euros corresponding to salaries, bonuses in particular”he explains.

“For almost two years, I worked for my country and there are leaders who play on the patriotic fiber. You are told that you are going to be paid, and it does not come, which can put you in a precarious situation, if you have credit or dependent children,” he continues.

The former Leopards coach adds that these payment delays are even more complex to manage for local technicians, hesitant to contact FIFA, “because he resides there and if he contacts FIFA, he is in a certain way attacking the State, which could harm his professional future. » These local technicians must therefore be content with the bonuses paid during international matches to meet their needs and most often give up on months of salary, rather than entering into conflict with the State and compromising the rest of their careers. .