The football federations of Mozam-bique,Namibia and Zimbabwe on Monday lodged a joint appeal against

their exclusion from the bidding to hold the 2010 edition of the African Cup of Nations.

The three countries saw their bids unceremoniously thrown out at the meeting in Cairo on Sunday of the African Football Confederation. This was interpreted as a clear discri-mination against the southern African region.

According to the Mozambican sports journalists who covered the event, some senior officials even apologised to the

Mozambican delegation, saying that it had been decided well in advance to exclude Mozambique as soon as possible.

The journalists noted that the countries chosen to go on to the next stage - Libya, Nigeria, Angola and Gabon/Equatorial Guinea (who have put in a joint bid) - have one thing in common.

They are all oil producers. The four excluded, the southern African three plus Senegal, have no oil.

Mozambique had gone to the trouble of producing a slick video on its bid, regarded as much more professional than Libya’s power-point presentation. But it seems that the selection committee had already made up its mind, and the presentations were merely a matter of going through the motions.

According to the Mozambican Television (TVM) reporter in Cairo, while Mozambique scrupulously met all the guidelines for an African Cup of Nations bid, some of the countries that advance to the next phase did not. Some even put in their bids past the deadline, and so should not have been considered at all.

The Angolan bid did not have the backing of the Angolan government. Yet bids from football federations must be accompanied by documents specifying support from their govern-ments: those that do not have such support should be immediately rejected.

Cited in Tuesday’s issue of the Maputo daily "Noticias", the Deputy Minister of Youth and Sports, Carlos Sousa, described Mozambique’s exclusion as "bizarre".

He noted the neat balance of the four whose bids passed this first stage - one anglophone, one francophone, one lusophone, and one Arabic-speaking. And all relatively wealthy thanks to their oil. Was that the real criterion used in the choice, he mused.

Mozambique, Namibia and Zimbabwe believe they all met the criteria for advancing to the next stage in the selection process. Hence their joint appeal - and they warn that, if the

continental body does not take the appeal seriously, they will take the matter to the International Football Federation.

(AIM)