Africa News blog
African business, politics and lifestyle
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.
Time for colonial masters to pay up?
Italy settled its colonial era dispute with Libya at the weekend with $5 billion in compensation for wrongs done during colonial rule. The money will be invested in a major new highway as well as used for clearing mines and other projects. Both sides say that will allow them to make a new start.
Relations between Libya and Italy had been especially difficult and this was a very specific dispute, but Italian colonialism did not last all that long in Africa – even if there were episodes of particular nastiness while it did.
What about the far more important colonial players in Africa: Britain, France and Portugal? Not only was their presence far longer lasting, but they were more heavily involved in the Atlantic Slave Trade, which sapped the strength of west and central Africa for centuries and forced millions of its people into death or slavery. Calls for reparations from some quarters have never died down.
The colonial powers later carved up the map of Africa for their own administrative convenience and with little regard for those living there. Independence movements were often suppressed with heavy force — including in Algeria, the former Portuguese colonies and Kenya.
Since independence, the former colonial powers have given billions of dollars in development aid and other assistance. They generally have far better relationships with former colonies than Italy had with Libya.
But is it time for other former colonial powers to apologise and pay up for misdeeds on the continent? Or should the past be left for the history books?
What a load of hypocritical hogwash. So the Italians cough up $5 billion (using the US system of numbers (short scale), not the British system (long scale) thus 1 billion is a thousand million), for ‘circumstantial wrong doing’ and the Libyans cough up $2.7 billion for ‘circumstantial wrong doing’ for the Lockerbie victims. (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/3150793.s tm) That leaves $2.3 billion divided by 5.5 million population (http://www.arab.de/arabinfo/libya.htm) = $4181 per person. This is presumably called ‘Fair-Trade’. The Italians have a reputation of responsible government reminiscent of a firing squad formed in a circle. I suggest any future post-colonial guilt ridden nations take time out to read Clare Short’s letter to Robert Mugabe (Google that for a great laugh), simply put – she said – ‘shove it!’
best african player ever is augustine okocha (nigeria), followed by anthony yeboah (ghana). everything else is nonsense, reuters doesn’t know anything about football.