Goal.com’s Rami Ayari believes that the 2011 African Championship of Nations title win is but one recent example of the positive effects that the Tunisian revolution is having on the north African country's football.

As the curtain fell on the 2011 African Championship of Nations on Friday, there stood the ecstatic Tunisian victors raising a trophy that no one thought would mean so much when qualification was difficultly secured in Morocco last year. With smiles from ear to ear, the Carthage Eagles players had just capped their outstanding displays in Sudan with their best performance yet, a 3-0 thumping of the same Angolan team that held them to a 1-1 tie in their group opener, the only match the north Africans didn’t win during their title run.

For a side that finished with the best attack (11 goals scored), the best defense (3 goals conceded), the best player (Zouhaier Dhaouadi received the MVP award), and two out of the four joint top scorers (the aforementioned Dhaouadi and Salama Kasdaoui), it’s hard to imagine that the Tunisians had left their country in full blown revolt just a month earlier for a rushed week-long training camp in Morocco that Club Africain players didn’t even participate in due to CAF Champions League obligations in Rwanda.

The FTF had even considered withdrawing their side from the tournament altogether but, thankfully, resisted the urge. Considering how often they’ve erred during their time at the helm, this was by far the best decision that Ali Hafsi and the rest of the Federal Bureau ever took and likely ever will take. For despite this recent encouraging CHAN 2011 success, the vast majority of Tunisian fans are blissfully anticipating their resignation in the coming days or months.

While the bravery of their countrymen that led, and are still leading, the Tunisian revolution to fruition gave the players a rekindled sense of national pride that they hadn’t felt in all their years living under the repressive totalitarian regime of Zine Abidine Ben Ali and recreated the long lost bond between the Carthage Eagles and their fans back home, the animosity towards the FTF is just as intense and even more vocal than it was before the disgraced dictator fled on January 14th.

The FA members now return to an emboldened populace who are demanding that the they all step down and save their legacy by laying the groundwork for the first truly democratic FTF elections in light of the recent confirmations from a variety of prominent sport figures (Tarak Dhiab and Othmane Jenayeh to name a few) of what everyone knew already: Despite FIFA’s insistence on free and fair elections, the Tunisian government had essentially been fixing the results of FTF elections since… well, forever. The same goes for club team presidents who had to have the blessings of the state mafia and their local governors to attain and retain their posts.

While it is unclear how this democratic transition will play out, one can rest assured that the future of Tunisian football is brighter than ever. Club Africain just voted in the first democratically elected club president of the new era and Club Atletique Bizertin will be next after their chairman, Said Lassoued, honorably stepped down to make way for someone who would be voted in by the clubs members instead of being appointed like he was. With time, the rest of the nation’s clubs will undoubtedly follow suit for the new political reality in the small but grand north African nation dictates this paradigm shift.

In theory, democracy should mean that these highly coveted posts will no longer go to the most well connected businessmen but the most competent sports administrators who can prove that they deserve the trust of their respective fanbases. And while democracy is not without its pitfalls, it would be extremely difficult to argue that things will be worse than they were before the Tunisian revolution when anyone who had a viewpoint other than those running the show, whether it be in a political or football arena, would either never even have his opinion heard or have it discredited and censored in a disgusting manner that became an all too casual occurrence in our country.

Two years ago, while the fruits of repression had birthed perhaps the most incompetent FTF in Tunisia’s history, the Carthage Eagles didn’t even qualify for the first edition of the CHAN. The Federal Bureau treated this new competition reserved for domestic league players as an afterthought and the lack of importance attributed to this so called secondary obligation trickled down to the on field representatives who played with little conviction or imagination in home and away fixtures against neighbors Libya.

Today, the Tunisians stand as deserving champions of the second edition and can usher in an era of achievement with a trophy at their side, a talented young coach in Sami Trabelsi in their midst, dedicated players on the pitch who have rediscovered the meaning of their national anthem, and soon a democratically elected FTF that will finally take it upon itself to seriously tackle the problems that have been plaguing the country’s favorite sport instead of being used as a political tool by illegitimate rulers. If the Tunisian national team and club sides could reach the heights they did while living in a repressive society, then imagine what’s going to happen when these Carthage Eagles are set free!