Africa News blog

Nightmare start for Africa’s year of soccer

    Africa’s year of soccer scarcely could have got off to a worse start.

    Days before the start of the African Nations Cup — a warm-up for the continent’s first World Cup in South Africa this June — the gun attack on Togo’s national team by separatists in Angola for many will confirm Africa’s reputation for chaos.

    The ambush of the team bus as it wound its way through the restive enclave of Cabinda left the driver dead, nine wounded and a huge question mark over whether the tournament can proceed – despite host Angola’s pledges to heighten security.

    Sceptics of Africa’s ability to pull off major events of this kind will be saying “I told you so”.

    Was it really a good idea to schedule six group matches and a quarter-final in a region where separatist factions have waged a three-decade-long war?

    Why did the Togolese team choose to make its way through the area from its training ground in neighbouring Republic of Congo by coach, despite an apparent ban on bus travel?

    Tournament organisers have vowed that the competition would continue as planned, but with the rebel group behind the attack promising it was “just the start” of a campaign of violence it may not be the end of the story.

New hope for Nigerian football

The progress of two Nigerian teams into the group phase of the African Champions League defies the supposed impact of the continuing exodus of the country’s top talent to almost every distant footballing corner of the world.

Kano Pillars caused a major upset last month with their shock win over defending champions Al Ahly, albeit on the away goal rule, while Heartland FC eliminated last year’s runners-up Coton Sport of Cameroon at the same stage of the competition. Both results plunged the established order into disarray and offer now the Nigerians a chance to prove their immense resources.

Nigerian club football has had steady representation in the Champions League over the last 13 years but besides Enyimba, the state sponsored team from Aba State, no club has ever displayed title winning potential.

Much of that has to do with the flight of players from the country, off in search of better earnings and opportunity on foreign football fields. There are more than 200 Nigerian footballers playing across the globe, from the top leagues in England, Germany, Italy and Spain to lesser footballing markets like India, Vietnam and even in Albania.

Losing the top 200 players is a massive blow to any country and in particular the domestic championship. Nigeria might have a professional league in name but it is still a shambolic competition, dominated by extreme violence and routine disorgansiation. Attacks on players, coaches and referees remain common place and although there is some TV coverage, much of it is frustratingly haphazard for the broadcaster. The standard too is hampered by poor facilities and the player drain.

Nigeria, given their immense resources, really should be the powerhouse of club football in Africa. But because so many players have left, success for Africa’s most populous nation at club level is infrequent. The progress of Kano Pillars and Heartland FC, neither of whom have ever progressed this far before in the 13 years of the Champions League format, bucks that trend.

It emphasises again the immense potential of Nigerian football, which given its passionate following and playing resources should be the most prominent in Africa. But whether the progress of the pair of the clubs to the last eight of the Champions League, and the elite group field, is an anomaly or not will become evident in the coming months of competition.

Who is Africa’s best footballer?

Never has there been as much bounty in terms of African talent as there is now. 

Although the continent has long been a conveyor belt of talent, genuine world stars from the African continent have been few and far between.

Liberia’s George Weah was winner of the World Player of the Year and also won Europe’s Ballon d’Or, but it could be argued both awards came in a quiet year.

Mozambique-born Eusebio achieved his fame and repute in the colours of colonial Portugal and has never had his achievements genuinely accepted by African fans.

But over the last years, a sprinkling of world class stars have emerged, leaving the suggestion African football has never been a more exciting commodity than at present.

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Africans wary of World Cup ticket prices

The first phase of ticket sales for the 2010 World Cup closed on Tuesday night with 1.6 million applications received.

This is more than two applications per available ticket although there is likely to be much more demand for the matches during the exciting knockout phase of the tournament than for the opening two weeks of group play.

Of those 1.6 million, about 70 percent are overseas applicants, meaning 500,000 applications were received from residents of host nation South Africa and elsewhere on the African continent.

This contrasts starkly with six million applications received at the same stage of the sale phase ahead of the 2006 finals in Germany.

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Stumbling block for the Pharaohs?

Egypt might have won the last two African Nations Cup tournaments but the Pharaohs seem to have hit a stumbling block when it comes to the World Cup.

For all their prowess at the last two continental championships, and their glittering array of successes at club level, Egyptian soccer is becoming increasingly haunted by the spectre of continued failure to make it to biggest footballing showpiece of them all.

That means a pressured preparation for the country ahead of the start of the vital final phase of qualifiers for the 2010 finals in South Africa.

Already protesting supporters have managed to disrupt training during the week in Cairo as the Pharaohs prepared for Sunday’s Group C game against Zambia.

Sections of fans, hurling insults at goalkeeper Essam Al Hadari, were confronted by other supporters and training had to be halted. Al Hadari remains a figure of some derision after leaving Cairo favourites Al Ahli in acrimonious circumstances for a career in Switzerland.

While this is essentially an old and now tedious issue that long ago should have been laid to rest, it was the spark this week for a broader demonstration of the nervousness of the Egyptians on the eve of the start of the business end of the qualifiers.

They have a quality side, albeit aging, and a great reputation for being almost impossible to overcome at home. But there is also a psychological hurdle that Egypt must get over in the World Cup.

The dream just got harder

Two new proposed sets of new footballing legislation would make it even more difficult for Africa’s top soccer talent to achieve their dream of playing in Europe.

The proposed 6+5 regulation that FIFA president Sepp Blatter has been vigorously touting will mean less chance for African players to find lucrative employment with clubs in Europe, where the vastly better pay makes it a destination of choice for so many footballers from this continent. Blatter wants to ensure more local players feature in domestic football, which over the years in Europe has become blurred by liberal EU labour laws and the mass migration of footballing talent in all directions. It is 10 years ago, for example, since a club in the English Premier League last fielded an all-English side and, although as a product the premier league has become a world brand because of its world starts, there is a move now to restrict the number of foreigners playing in England and elsewhere.

UEFA president Michel Platini has received backing for his plan to scrap international transfer for players aged under 18, which will mean African talent will have to wait until past their 18th birthday before being able to head off to Europe.

While Platini’s plan is designed to prevent young players from around Europe being exploited by unscrupulous agents, it will also stymie the path of the continent’s best young talent.

Clubs seek to take African players of potential across to Europe at an early age, the theory being that a lack of coaching means many need to be instilled with good basics before their formative years are over and bad habits form.

That is why top European clubs scout the African under-17 championship, which starts in Algeria later this month, much more vigorously than they do the under-20 championship, where players are in their late teens but deemed already ‘too old’ to transfer.

It is the economic reality of Africa that players dream of a move to Europe where the money they stand to earn proves life changing, not only for the footballer but for a multitude of dependents too.

Togo need a miracle

It is hard to fathom what the motivation for Jean Thissen’s decision would be. He takes on the job as national team coach of Togo just over two weeks before the resumption of Africa’s World Cup qualifiers and with the very real prospect of having to do without his best player.

Thissen is the third new coach to take over at the helm of a side who are still in the World Cup race and set out at the end of this month on the final leg of the fight for one of the five berths for the 2010 World Cup finals in South Africa.

The 63-year-old, who is a former Belgian international and has coached in Gabon, Morocco and Tunisia, parachutes in to take charge of Togo’s team after Frenchman Henri Stambouli walked out last year.

But talk of taking on the virtually impossible. ‘Les Eperviers’ (the sparrowhawks) have the most daunting start to their Group A campaign, starting on March 28 against Cameroon on neutral territory in Accra where Togo are forced to play their home matches because of a ban on their own stadium in Lome.

Cameroon are hot favourites as an exciting new generation of talent bursts through their ranks.

To make matters worse, there is the strong possibility that Togo will go into the game without talismanic captain Emmanuel Adebayor.

The newly crowned African Footballer of the Year pulled a hamstring playing for Arsenal in the English premier league just weeks ago and is supposedly sidelined for some time to come. Arsenal with its galaxy of stars is noticeably poorer for his absence, so imagine what a blow the injury is to Togo’s hopes.

A tournament too far?

A new soccer tournament is being played out in Ivory Coast this week to indifference from most of the continent. The African Nations Championship is proving to be the damp squib it always looked in danger of becoming.

The CHAN, keeping up the rich tradition of abbreviations for African sporting events, is a tournament designed to give more international competition to players based on the continent.

Quasi-national teams, but only made up of players from domestic leagues, are competing in Abidjan and Bouake over the next fortnight – eight countries having come through a brief qualifying phase.

Although the public will come to watch countries like the Ivory Coast, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Zambia, the supposed national teams are in effect not much more than the best domestic league selections.

African league football these days rarely has any real talent left.

The best players long left for greener pastures overseas. There are now more than 600 Africans plying their trade at clubs in Asia, Europe, north America and in better-paid African leagues.

To dress up the rest in national colours and pretend they are actually representing their respective countries is seen as an insult by many supporters. Fans don’t want to see a supposed national side for which the likes of Didier Drogba, Kolo Toure and the like are ineligible to play.