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Politics plays its part at the African Nations Cup
Being in Cabinda for the African Nations Cup should have been fun. At first, it was not, to say the least. The Togo team bus came under fire, with the assistant coach and a press officer being shot to death by a group of separatists as they were on their way to Cabinda from Pointe Noire, Congo.
It was only after long talks and multiple changes of minds that the Sparrowhawks decided to leave the Angolan northern enclave to fly back home and mourn their dead.
We would get calls from players saying they wanted to leave — that was on Saturday. Calls from the same players saying they wanted to stay after all — that was on Sunday.
Eventually, the prime minister got the last word, urging the Togo team to come back home. Until the last minute, some players tried to stay in Angola.
A plane sent by Togo touched down at Cabinda airport but it took off to Lome with the players on board only 10 hours later.
Angolan and Togolese officials locked themselves in a Cabinda airport office for hours as the host nation did all it could to try and persuade Togo to stay.
UPDATE: Should the African Nations Cup be called off?
UPDATE: The death toll has risen to three. The bus driver died on Friday and an assistant coach and press officer died on Saturday. Togo appear to have pulled out.
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African Nations Cup organisers are adamant that the tournament will go ahead in Angola despite Friday’s ambush of the Togo team bus.
The bus had just entered the Angolan enclave of Cabinda, where separatists have waged a three-decade long war, when it came under heavy gunfire. Players said that the attack lasted for around 20 to 30 minutes.
Local organisers (COCAN) criticised the Togolese for the incident.
“The rules are clear: no team should travel by bus. I don’t know what led them to do this. The incident would not have happened in the city,” said Virgilio Santos, an official with COCAN.
Countries with unstable governments are one of the big challenges of the next century. Sports play a role in bringing countries together and developing a means to work together despite differences. Sports should be one area that is agnostic to violence, but as with all things, it will take time to get there, For a 2010 FIFA World Cup security briefing, visit http://www.kivuconsulting.com/Kivu_Inter national.html.
Since when did football’s baying mobs occupy the moral high ground?
Many Arsenal supporters spent half of last season, and most of Saturday’s match, screaming abuse at Emmanuel Adebayor. On Saturday, he scored and dared to run the length of the pitch to celebrate in front of them.
“Outrageous” and “shocking” screamed just about everyone. Obviously he should take the blame for the visiting fans’ subsequent eruption of hatred and vitriol. It was clearly his fault that some of them threw missiles on to the pitch and he is obviously culpable for the City steward being knocked unconscious in the melee.
He got booked for his troubles – for “incitement” – and now there is talk of him being banned.
What tosh.
Crowds abusing players, whether it is the polite booing of a former member of their club or the increasingly nasty attacks of recent seasons, has always been part of the game. When a player has the temerity to reply with a “shush”, or a finger on the lips, hand cupped to ear etc those same fans appear outraged.
Look at the photographs from Saturday’s game as Adebayor slid towards the visitors’ section. The furious hatred, the hand signals, the abuse shown by some fans – ground bylaw offences by the bucketload and enough to have the perpetrators thrown out of the ground should the stewards have chosen to act.
I would like to say that I completely agree with the senitment of this article and am pleased to see that such a counter arguement is being published through a well-regarded news channel like Reuters.
It is all too often implied that, if a footballer player pulls a “ner-nicky-ner-ner” type gesture and blows a metaphorical rasberry at a group of fans (who have usually been hurling varying degrees of aggression and abuse at the player in question), they are therefore entitled to get so angry that they look like their heads will explode before committing what is ultimately common assault. They are then, apparently, entitled to blame subsequent outbreaks of mob violence on the player (and sometimes even the police), instead of getting in trouble themselves.
I’m sorry but many of these guys are animals and should not be sympathised with in any way whatsoever.
The point is that far too many media institutions take a stance that implies that the fans are not at fault because they were provoked – presumably because the media channels do not want to alienate or side away from a group of people they ultimately see as their ‘customer’ – but I argue that they are (1) entirely at fault and (2) human beings who should take responsibility for their actions.
These guys are ruining football almost as much as the overriding ‘general consensus’ that persistently takes their side (“the fans make the game what it is!”, “the fans pay the players’ wages!”, “the player provoked the fans!”) and ultimately only serves to support, justify and excuse their thuggery.
