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2 December 2025

To: President Patrice Motsepe
Confederation of African Football (CAF)

Terminate CAF’s Sponsorship Deal with Total Energies — For the Sake of Our Future

Dear President Motsepe and the CAF Executive Committee,

As concerned African youth, we write to you with urgency: it is time for CAF to end its AFCON  sponsorship deal with Total Energies and refuse to allow African football to be tainted by the image of a fossil fuel giant that is undermining our future.

The planet is burning. The climate crisis is being fuelled in large part by the extraction, burning, and lobbying of oil and gas companies. It would be a betrayal of African youth and our collective future to allow our beloved game to be used by such actors as a vehicle for greenwashing.

Total Energies must be shown the red card, and here is why:

  1. Deliberate misinformation & greenwashing

Total has repeatedly presented itself as a company committed to sustainability, while continuing to develop new fossil projects and delay meaningful climate action. Its PR campaigns are increasingly judged by independent regulators as “misleading.” In both South Africa and France, sponsorship of AFCON gives it a veneer of legitimacy and “clean credentials” at precisely the moment it is doing the opposite.

  1. Human rights abuses and community harm on the continent
    According to a report published in Politico,  In Cabo Delgado, Mozambique, Total’s LNG project in Afungi has been tied to forced displacements, interruption of livelihoods, and serious allegations that security forces guarding the site detained civilians in containers, beat them, deprived them of food, and caused deaths. (360 Mozambique) In East Africa (EACOP, Uganda/Tanzania), the pipeline project threatens over 100,000 people with displacement, undermines water sources, and violates land rights, while compensation practices and safeguards have been widely criticized. (Greenpeace)
  2. Profits above public good
    TotalEnergies and their peers in big oil extract massive profits while externalizing costs onto communities, ecosystems, and the climate. The resources spent lobbying, delaying emissions reductions, and resisting regulation could instead fund clean energy, health, education, and resilience across Africa. Instead of repairing the damage they’ve caused across our continent, TotalEnergies chooses to sponsor AFCON and lull our youth into a false sense of security – a morally bankrupt choice.
  3. Co-opting African youth and sporting culture
     CAF and AFCON have deep emotional resonance across the continent. By allowing Total to sponsor our game, we endorse their attempt to seduce our youth with the illusion of benevolence, while they continue extraction and environmental destruction behind the scenes. That is unacceptable. Football should unite us, not be sold as a fig leaf for exploitation. (Greenpeace)

CAF stands at a crossroads. You can choose to protect the integrity of African football, align with the values of youth, community, and environment — or you can continue to partner with a company whose core business is antithetical to a livable future. The decision is clear.

We, the undersigned (fans, civil society groups, climate justice advocates, concerned citizens), call upon you to:

  • Immediately terminate the sponsorship deal with Total Energies (including all naming and branding rights)
  • Publicly affirm that CAF will refuse future partnership with fossil fuel corporations
  • Redirect outreach and sponsorship efforts toward clean energy, sustainable development, or ethical funding sources

We demand not only a symbolic gesture but a structural change: African football must no longer be complicit in climate injustice. You have the power to act — and the world is watching.

Football on a burning planet is no victory. Let us choose life.

Respectfully,

[Signatories / organisations / individuals]

  1. Magamba Network
  2. Kick Polluters Out Network
  3. Journal Rappe
  4. Sisonke Climate Justice Project
  5. The Green Connection
  6. Fossil Free South Africa
  7. Don’t Gas Africa
  8. Power Shift Africa
  9. StopEACOP
  10. NairoBits Trust
  11. Klimakultur
  12. We the People, Nigeria
  13. Quest For Growth and Development Foundation
  14. Litter4tokens.org
  15. Trash4tokens.org
  16. Cool Down Sport For Climate Action Network
  17. Badvertising
  18. ACTIVISTA BÉNIN
  19. Wadhajir Initiative for Development
  20. Fossil Free Football
  21. Comms Declare
  22. Buni Media
  23. Reclame Fossielvrij (Fossil Free Advertising)
  24. Thrive Afrika
  25. Extinction Rebellion Cape Town
  26. re•generation
  27. SOMO
  28. ONG OJADE BÉNIN
  29. Africa Institute for Energy Governance (AFIEGO)
  30. Sekhukhune Combined Mining Affected Communities(SCMAC),
  31. Community Development Advocacy Foundation (CODAF)
  32. Creek Girl Empowerment Initiative (CGEI)
  33. Climate Newsroom
  34. Climate Clock DRC
  35. ONG ASEFCE BENIN
  36. TRAFFED -RDC,Asbl
  37. Initiative Bonne Gouvernance des Ressources Naturelles au Kivu (IBGRN/K)
  38. Forum des Engagés pour le Développement Durable (FORED)
  39. Engagement Communautaire pour la Sauvegarde de Biodiversité / « ECOS-Biodiversité »
  40. Environment Governance Institute (EGI)
  41. Creatives for Climate
  42. 350Africa.org 
  43. ActionAid Zimbabwe
  44. Global Platform Zimbabwe
  45. Green Conservers, Tanzania
  46. AICED RDC
  47. Clean Creatives South Africa
  48. Environmental Rights Action. Nigeria