Libya volleyball and basketball slap Ashalmani (will he wake up)?

The 34th edition of African Cup of Nations tournament, hosted by Ivory Coast, will begin in a few days and witnesses the participation of 24 national teams for the first time in the history of the tournament; do you know the dates of our national team's matches in the tournament? Of course you don't know! Our team did not qualify to participate in this tournament in the first place, a legitimate question will come to your mind, how can we fail to qualify for the African Nations Championship even after raising the teams participating in the tournament to 24? 24 teams means just under half of the teams that participated in the qualifiers, yet our national team, led by the veteran Football Association, succeeded in failing to reach the championship.

I remember, during the African Cup of Nations qualifiers and the lackluster performance of our national team, good news was published by the official page of the Football Association on Facebook, of nominating the President of the Federation, Abdelhakim Ashalmani, for membership in one of the committees of the Confederation of African Football. The page published the news with lofty pictures of Ashalmani in the seats of the African Union Committee, as if we should feel proud and share this pride with Ashalmani. His presence in the Football Association is not to develop our local football, raise the status of our league, and lead our team to the African Cup and win it like all our neighbors, but also to the World Cup like all our neighbors. His presence in the presidency of the federation is limited to his exploiting this position for his personal benefits, including membership in the African Union committees, without our team having any imprint or even any presence in the African Union competitions.

Some may defend Ashalmani and his federation with the pretext of weak capabilities and lack of support, but this is a disproven and rejected argument. Teams such as Guinea-Bissau, Cape Verde, Mauritania, Tanzania and others are much lower than us in terms of capabilities, let alone the support aspect in these countries, and even in most African countries. The Libyan Basketball Federation has also refuted any argument that Ashalmani and his federation might present for failure, as the current Basketball Federation has been able, in less than three years, with fewer capabilities and more support, to organize a successful, strong and competitive league that has become the focus of attention of many basketball fans, especially in the Arab countries. It also succeeded in leading the Libyan basketball team to the podiums at the Arab level after winning the silver medal in the last Arab basketball championship that was held in Egypt a few days ago, during which our team outperformed teams with a long history in the game, such as Algeria, Kuwait, and especially Tunisia, the African champion, and only lost to Egypt, the host team of the tournament.

The Volleyball Federation has also succeeded in organizing a strong and competitive league and building strong national teams, even at the age groups, which have succeeded in achieving impressive results, most recently winning the African Junior Championship and running for the World Cup for the first time.

Despite his continued failure, Ashalmani refuses to leave his position, and refuses to even implement a judicial ruling invalidating his election because he knows that the state will not remove him from his position by force of law because that would mean the intervention of the International Federation of Football Associations (FIFA) to protect him. If the state enforces the judicial ruling and removes Ashalmani by force, then FIFA will decide to deprive the Libyan Football Association and its clubs and teams from participating in all international and continental championships and competitions for a period of no less than four years, because FIFA only considers the associations elected in accordance with local regulations and rejects the interference of politics and the judiciary in this matter. Ashalmani knows that he is a failure and has not achieved anything for local football, knowing that his election to his current position is invalid and contrary to the law, with a judicial ruling that removes disagreement and confusion, but he also knows that the government of the return of life will not remove him, no matter how unsuccessful he may be, because it does not want to be attributed to it that during its rule it deprived our clubs and teams of foreign participation. But in this situation, why does the government of the return of life not pressure Ashalmai to resign or at least improve his situation? The government of the return of life does not want anything to be written on its page except achievements, and Ashalmani will not achieve any achievement for it, no matter how long he continues at the helm of the Libyan Football Association (and he still is). 

But on the other hand, isn't it unfair to hold Ashalmani solely responsible for failure, when has our national football team achieve any success? We have never been qualified for the World Cup, neither during the era of Ashalmani nor anyone else. Rather, we have only been qualified for the African Cup on very few occasions, and our achievements do not go beyond winning the African Cup for local players in an exceptional surge in 2012. However, winning this cup is not considered an achievement because it is an unofficial tournament.

When our league was strong, competitive and clean, we did not achieve these qualities with Ashalmani, and we did not know such qualities before him, and our clubs did not win any foreign championship at all, and even the arrival of our clubs to advanced stages of continental championships does not exceed the fingers of one hand, so why do we hold Ashalmani alone responsible for failure? Our club officials are like gang leaders; they do not care about the league or the club, but only conspire to serve their clubs regardless of the means and methods. Our stadiums are not even suitable for training, let alone playing competitive matches that improve the quality of game and the players. Our press, media, and television channels are not suitable with their current capabilities to broadcast even league matches of twenty years ago, stadium officials and security agencies are fans of competing teams in the league and are treating them in a preferential manner that puts competition in an almost impossible atmosphere.

Also, the success of the Basketball Federation in organizing a successful and (fair) league and the national team’s reaching advanced positions does not necessarily mean the superiority of the federation and its presidency, as the atmosphere of public and official competition in basketball is much less than its counterpart in football, and the emergence of an exceptional generation in a particular game at a certain stage, this does not necessarily mean that the leadership of the game is successful and capable. Such breakthroughs have occurred in several countries before and in global competitions, and the achievement was not attributed to the sports federation as much as it was attributed to a unique generation of outstanding players who came in a time boom and achieved achievements that disappeared with their disappearance. Who can forget the remarkable generation that achieved a unique achievement for Denmark by winning the 1992 European Cup, or the genius generation that made the Czech Republic one of the strongest European teams in the mid-nineties, the miracle of Greece in the European Cup in 2004, the remarkable march of South Korea in the 2002 World Cup, or the golden generation that won Zambia the African Cup in 2012?

With all of the above, and with the certainty that Ashalmani will not put the public interest ahead of his personal interest and acknowledge his failure and withdraw, we only wish him success in leading our league and teams, as his success will be a success for all of us, and his expected failure is a continuation of our usual failure in sports and elsewhere.