Summer Reflections – Part 1 of 3
The 2010 World Cup
By PJ Rain

On June 11, the Fédéracion Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) opened its first major World Cup on the continent of Africa.   The sport of soccer, known as football outside of the United States, is the most popular in the world, and as one who believes that sports have a way of bringing people together to achieve a common goal, the tournament hopefully served to re-ignite, revive, and for some, to even introduce, a sense of pride in all Africans who reside or have descended from the continent.   It was a tournament that included a record number of African countries (6) in the 32-team field, and the qualifying African nations included Algeria, Cote d’Ivoire, Cameroon, Ghana, Nigeria, and the host country, the Republic of South Africa.  

The very first World Cup tournament was held in Uruguay in 1930, and Egypt was the first African team to participate in the tournament in 1934.   In that tournament, hosted by Italy, the Egyptian Pharaohs lost 4-2 in the first round to the Hungary Mighty Magyars.   Another African team did not appear in the World Cup until 1970 when Morocco participated in three matches during the group stage of a 16-team tournament that consisted of 10 European countries and five from the Americas.   In 1986, with the tournament field expanded to 24 teams, Morocco became the first African country to make it out of group play in a World Cup tournament before being eliminated 1-0 by Germany as one of the final 16 competitors.   Algeria was the other African nation to participate in that 1986 World Cup tournament hosted by Mexico.

The subsequent 1990 World Cup also featured two African nations, Egypt and Cameroon, compared to 14 from Europe, four from South America, two from North and Central America, and two from Asia.   Cameroon, led by Roger Milla, became the first team from Africa to reach the quarterfinals before being eliminated by England in a dramatic 3-2 defeat in a tournament hosted again by Italy.   Milla and the nation of Cameroon further increased their notoriety at the 1994 tournament when Milla, at 42 years of age, became the oldest player to participate in a World Cup match and the oldest to score a goal during a 6-1 loss to Russia.

In 1998, World Cup officials increased the field of qualifiers from 24 to 32, and it is said that the performance of Roger Milla and Cameroon in the 1990 World Cup spurred the overall expansion as well as the granting of five regional qualifying spaces for the continent of Africa.   As the African presence on the global football stage becomes more prominent, a mounting challenge is being assumed by the Confederation of African Football (CAF).   The challenge for continuing to develop the sport in Africa lies in the ability of the CAF, one of FIFA’s six member confederations, to establish an infrastructure that keeps Africa’s best players competing on the continent throughout the year.   According to Professor Peter Alegi from Michigan State University, more than 80% of Africa’s World Cup players play club soccer in the lucrative European leagues.   Encouraging these superstars to remain on the continent with competition and compensation that is commensurate with the European leagues would have a tremendous impact on the development of the sport as well as on the collective national and continental morale for the region.   Strides continue to be made among the various African nations, and the CAF has successfully presided over an African Cup of Nations tournament that began with three teams in 1957 and now contains 16 teams from across the continent.   Unfortunately, the disparity in wealth and infrastructure between the CAF and the Union of European Football Associations (UEAF) has not been easily resolved.*   As Professor Alegi reminds us in an interview on the history of soccer in Africa, “Europe seems to benefit disproportionately at the expense of Africa…and there’s a long history of that.”  

Another reason for the European domination of the sport lies in the widely accepted belief that it was invented in England during the late 19th century and then carried to the rest of the world during various expeditions and “missionary” trips.**   However, there is evidence that the military exercises performed by the Chinese during the period of the Han Dynasty which prohibited the use of the hands and involved kicking a ball into a net existed thousands of years ago.   It is also known that when the Pilgrims arrived on the shores of North America in the early 1600s, they observed the Native Americans playing a game called pasuckuakohowog  with as many as 1,000 people at a time on beach land that was one half mile in width with two goals that were one mile apart.   Pasuckuakohowog involved kicking a ball along the beach towards the opposing goal and could sometimes last for a couple of days before culminating in a feast.   The ancient Greeks and Romans are also known to have played kicking/throwing games called episkyros and harpastum, respectively, which involved moving a small ball across a rectangular field marked by side and end boundaries and a center line.   Yet, perhaps the genesis of it all may be found in Africa itself as Ancient Egyptian tombstone artifacts dating back as far as 2500 B.C. contain depictions of football-like games being played in the region.***  

Nineteenth century England can only justifiably garner credit for “borrowing” and codifying the concepts and ideas of other cultures and eras into a single sporting competition known as Association Football in 1863.   Beyond that, it is a sport to which the indigenous peoples of the Americas, Asia, and Africa can also stake their claim.   Yet, Africa’s talented young soccer players have continued to be lured to Europe and abroad through the same techniques that have infringed upon the rest of the continent’s vast resources –exploitive agreements conditioned only in good-faith with promises of increased wealth.   One of the world’s most famous soccer legends, Pele, has referred to the recruitment process by agents and promoters who transfer teenage players to the European club circuit from Africa, Brazil, and Argentina as “the slave trade.”    Pele’s assertion concerns not only the issue of the European teams and their recruiting agents exploiting young talent at a discounted cost, but also the reality of what happens when they don’t succeed as professional soccer players.   When the dream of soccer superstardom in Europe doesn’t materialize, many of the young players end up cleaning tube stations in Belgium, France, or some other country far away from their families and homeland.

The players from Africa and of African descent who do find success on the pitches of the European circuit have a different set of challenges to confront.   Although the salaries can be lucrative and there are at least 1,000 Africans playing in the European club system, the treatment that some of them have received from fans and other players is beyond reprehensible.   Fans throughout the circuit have hurled audible obscenities at the Black players in the league, ranging from shouting “monkey” with accompanying chants and noises to the same “Black bastard” slurs endured by Jackie Robinson and company as they broke the color barrier in Major League Baseball over 60 years ago.   In some instances, entire stadiums have reverberated with the sound of ape noises being made by the fans, and there have also been several instances of bananas being thrown onto the fields.   The support received from coaches and teammates has at times not been much better.   In 2004, during a training session for the Spanish National team, head coach, Luis Aragones, was filmed trying to motivate one of his   players by saying the following, “Demuestra que eres mejor que ese negro de mierda” – [translation: “show that you’re better than that Black shit.”]   The player of African descent to whom Aragones was referring was French-born star, Thierry Henry.  

Because of their large numbers and relative impact on the pitches of the European leagues, some Africans and players of African descent have been able to use their influence to leverage some degree of change.   In 2005, Samuel Eto’o of Cameroon, threatened to leave the field in the middle of the game as a group of opposing fans taunted him with racial slurs while his Barcelona club team competed against another Spanish team in Aragon.   Eto’o’s teammates and coach persuaded him to continue and the offending fans were identified and banned from the venue for five months.   Understandably Eto’o was not satisfied with the sanction preferring to see the entire venue shut down for at least one year.   He also vowed not to bring his children to any more of his matches to protect them from witnessing that type of hostility.   United States-born player Oguchi Onyewu, whose parents are immigrants from Nigeria, even filed a lawsuit in Belgium against a white player who he said repeatedly referred to him as a “dirty ape” during a playoff game while Onyewu was a member of a Belgium club team.   Still, while the players express their concerns and the sport’s governing bodies attempt to manage the problem, racism in the European leagues remains a matter that needs to be addressed.

Given the unique set of challenges that confront Africans who compete and excel in the sport of soccer, it was very encouraging on many levels to see the World Cup tournament held on African soil.   Seeing those who have not been personally subjected to the racial taunts and abuses on European soil complaining and reluctantly adapting to the constant and jubilant buzz of the South African vuvuzela horns during each of the matches was a refreshing turnabout.   It was also inspiring to see the proud players from six different African nations competing and asserting themselves on their homeland and no less gratifying to witness several players of African descent dispersed throughout the other World Cup teams performing on a stage that is truly their own.   Finally, it was comforting to witness and even feel the unifying forces generated by The Black Stars of Ghana as they emerged victorious, even if at the expense of the aspirations of a few of their African brothers on Team USA, to become just the third African team to reach a World Cup quarterfinal match.   As the only African team remaining in the tournament after the first round was completed, it was also nice to see the team from Ghana embraced as Africa’s team.   Their accomplishment of being one of the final eight teams in the tournament was not relegated only to prideful chants in taverns across a single nation.   It extended across an entire continent and, even if only temporarily, to all of the descendants of that continent in various parts of the world.  

Ghana was eventually eliminated by Uruguay in the quarterfinals, but for becoming one of the final eight teams in the 32-team tournament, the players were later honored and thanked by the government for their unifying quest.   Hopefully, the successful endeavor by South Africa as host of the tournament and the strong showing by Ghana in the competition will further accelerate the development of the sport on the continent.   By the way, the FIFA U-20 Women’s World Cup (July 13- August 1), which was held in Germany, recently concluded and Ghana was again represented along with Nigeria in a 16-team field.****  The Falconets of Nigeria further energized the cultivation of proud African soccer tradition by becoming the first group from the continent to reach a Women’s World Cup final before being defeated (2-0) by the host country, Germany, in the championship match.   The time is approaching when World Cup celebrations among African nations will no longer be considered a rarity.

Part 2 – Summer Reflections – Lebron’s “Decision”

Part 3 – Summer Reflections – Sports, Religion, Media, Politics

*  The Confederation of African Football (CAF) is one of the largest of the six confederations, and although it was founded in 1957, only three years after the UEFA (1954), it has struggled to generate the financial resources to maintain a system of competitive professional leagues and developmental programs to rival those in Europe.   The CAF also does not have the advantage of a long history like the South American Football Association (CONMEBOL), founded in 1916, to balance out wealth disparities with Europe.   CAF does, however, benefit from the immense interest and talent levels for the sport in Africa.