In Morocco, there is no escaping which company is sponsoring the Africa Cup of Nations.
The branding is everywhere, from the billboards promoting the competition on the corniche of Tangier to the bunting that decorates the clean, orderly streets of Rabat.
The media accreditation centre in the capital, where the opening match takes place on Sunday between the hosts and Comoros, is decked with TotalEnergies paraphernalia.
It is not the first time that the French multinational energy company has made its presence felt at an AFCON. It was also prominent across Ivory Coast during the last edition of the tournament in 2024, by which time its partnership with the Confederation of African Football (CAF) was already eight years old.
It won’t be the last, either: an extension until 2029 was announced earlier this year, widely reported as being worth $1.125billion (£840m) to CAF, a significant increase on previous figures. As well as AFCON, TotalEnergies also sponsors the Women’s Africa Cup of Nations and the CAF Champions League.
While CAF’s president Patrice Motsepe reminded us in a joint statement with TotalEnergies that “the partnership contributes to the development and global competitiveness of football in 54 African countries”, the firm described itself as “the continent’s leading multi-energy company,” having been present in Africa for 90 years.
Buried in the statement, however, was another line that hinted at something more troubling. TotalEnergies said it was “resolutely continuing to reduce emissions from its operated sites”, presumably nodding to the fact that it is aware of the perception of its impact on global warming, and how its relationship with CAF is viewed.
It could hardly be otherwise. Before the last AFCON in 2024, Greenpeace accused TotalEnergies of sportswashing — in its words, “wilfully exploiting AFCON’s millions of global viewers to boost its image” — and similar criticisms are being levelled at the company now.
Frank Huisingh from the Fossil Free Football campaign told The Athletic that the fossil fuel industry broadly associates itself with “our football heroes and sells us the lie that we can’t do without their dangerous products. AFCON shouldn’t let itself be used for the promotion of dirty fossil fuels and adopt a sustainable sponsorship policy.”
When contacted by The Athletic, TotalEnergies said any claims it was engaging in sportswashing were “false” and that it had “invested over €20billion (£17.54bn; $23.45bn) in low-carbon energies worldwide since 2020.”
Events continue to provide an uncomfortable context, however. Last weekend, Morocco experienced extreme weather when heavy rains in the Atlas Mountains, which had experienced drought for several years, led to flooding in the coastal town of Safi, killing dozens of people.
Damage caused by flash floods in Safi (AFP via Getty Images)
CAF — which declined to comment when contacted by The Athletic about its partnership with TotalEnergies — finds itself at the centre of attention now because the eyes of the football world are upon it, but it is far from the only football federation profiting from a relationship with a fossil fuel giant. Before the war in Ukraine, Russia’s Gazprom was a sponsor of the FIFA World Cup and UEFA’s Champions League, as well as clubs such as Schalke and Crvena Zvezda.
FIFA also has a relationship worth a reported $100m a year with the Saudi Arabian state oil company, Aramco, which by the end of 2024, had produced more oil and gas than any other company, making it one of the biggest fossil fuel polluters on the planet. Not that FIFA would have wanted to trumpet that fact at the recent World Cup draw, which — in its own words — was “powered by Aramco”.
When approached by The Athletic to respond to criticisms of its partnership with Aramco, FIFA declined to comment formally but said it attempts to create as much revenue as possible to reinvest money into football.
It feels unlikely — and possibly unfair — to expect CAF to discard such lucrative agreements, particularly given it already trails in so many ways economically. Turning down investment from sectors like hydrocarbon would just make the playing field even more unbalanced.
The link with TotalEnergies is, however, doubly problematic.
Earlier this month, a human rights report commissioned by the Netherlands Institute of International Relations Clingendael, in the wake of reporting by Politico, alleged that Mozambique government soldiers employed by TotalEnergies were responsible for a massacre conducted between July and September 2021 at a gas plant owned by the company in the north of the country.
The soldiers had been charged with guarding the plant after the company withdrew its staff following attacks in the local area by militants from the Islamic State-affiliated jihadist group Al-Shabab in March 2021. Those attacks led to the deaths of 1,354 people, 330 of whom were beheaded.
Politico and Clingendael reported an eyewitness’s claim that Mozambique soldiers herded around 180 people, mainly men, into shipping containers at the gas plant and held them there for three months. Over that time, many were taken away and executed, with only 26 men surviving. It was part of a series of alleged human rights abuses committed by the soldiers, which also included sexual violence, bribery and looting against members of the local population.
In November, the non-profit European Centre for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR) filed a criminal complaint with France’s national counterterrorism office in Paris, which accused TotalEnergies of complicity in war crimes.
The United Kingdom had planned to provide more than $1billion towards the TotalEnergies gas project in Mozambique, with some of that money coming through taxpayer loans. Yet on December 1, Dutch and British governments pulled their funding, according to a statement released by UK business secretary Peter Kyle, because of “risks (that) have increased since 2020.” There was no mention of the alleged atrocities in Kyle’s statement.
In a statement published on its website in November, TotalEnergies said it “firmly rejects” all accusations of being complicit in war crimes and that it had no knowledge of the violence (a position it had also taken in a statement issued in September 2024). It also said that “Mozambique LNG (liquid natural gas) personnel were not present on site” at the time of the reprisal attacks, having been evacuated in April.
In Politico’s original article, a company spokesperson was quoted as insisting that “TotalEnergies takes these allegations very seriously” and vowing to “comply with the lawful investigation prerogatives of the French authorities.”
When asked by The Athletic for further comment on the allegations carried by Politico and Clingendael, TotalEnergies referred back to the statements issued in September 2024 and November 2025.
It would be overstating it to claim that the TotalEnergies controversy will overshadow AFCON, but it will be hard to ignore. Mozambique’s campaign begins on Wednesday with a group-stage match with Ivory Coast, the holders, while the opening game pits Morocco, still reeling from the disaster in Safi, against Comoros, making their second appearance at the tournament.
Comoros, a volcanic island nation in the Indian Ocean, is one of the world’s poorest countries, with as much as 39 per cent of its population living below the poverty line, according to World Bank estimates, and with an economy centred around agriculture, it is particularly susceptible to climate-related disasters.
FIFA is aware of this because in 2019 it helped the Comoros national football association rebuild in the wake of Cyclone Kenneth, one of the strongest tropical storms registered in East Africa since records began. FIFA helped fund a new technical centre on the island to the tune of $2.5million and, when it was inaugurated five years later, it wrote about an “impressive recent recovery, achieved against all the odds” on its website.
In 2023, Said Ali Said Athouman, the president of the Comoron Football Association (FFC), admitted “we’re a fragile country” and one that is acutely aware of its precarious position both as a possible victim of climate change, and a (minor) contributor to it.
Twelve of the 26 Comoros players at AFCON play in the French lower divisions and they do not travel to Comoros by rowing boat. “We have to catch a plane to get from one country or from one island to another,” Ali Said Athouman acknowledged. “That involves expense and it creates pollution.”
Ecological problems may not be dominating the thoughts of Comoros’ Canadian head coach Stefano Cusin — he is more likely to be preoccupied by the fact that FIFA’s decision to delay the release of players from their clubs means he will have just five training sessions to prepare them for the Morocco match — but they are a reminder that football does not just present these contradictions: it helps construct them.
Stefano Cusin is coaching Comoros at AFCON (James Baylis – AMA/Getty Images)
FIFA president Gianni Infantino described his organisation as “the official happiness provider for humanity”.
If that statement is to mean anything, surely the onus is on him to take the lead on ecological issues and encourage continental federations to do the same — even if it comes at a cash cost.